A Shropshire Lad

by A. E. Housman, David Butterfield (Introduction)

Overview

Evocative of ‘the blue remembered hills’ of his youth, Alfred Edward Housman’s A Shropshire Lad is a collection of sixty-three poems of extraordinary beauty and feeling. Set in a semi-imaginary pastoral Shropshire, Housman’s verse considers the helplessness of man, the fragility of life and the terrible effects of war, against the background of an achingly beautiful countryside.

Inspirational for generations of readers, A Shropshire Lad, with its sweeping themes of youth and love, has found its way into the canon of English folksong and has been set to music by composers George Butterworth, John Ireland and Ralph Vaughan Williams.

This beautiful Macmillan Collector’s Library edition of A. E. Housman's A Shropshire Lad features the superb wood engravings of the Vorticist artist and illustrator Agnes Miller Parker, and is accompanied by an afterword by Dr David Butterfield, Editor of the Housman Society Journal.

Designed to appeal to the booklover, the Macmillan Collector’s Library is a series of beautiful gift editions of much loved classic titles. Macmillan Collector’s Library are books to love and treasure.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781509848836
Publisher:	Pan Macmillan
Publication date:	10/19/2017
Series:	Macmillan Collector's Library , #145
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	128
File size:	16 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Alfred Edward Housman was born in 1859 and brought up in the Bromsgrove region of Worcestershire, adjacent to Shropshire. He was educated locally and then studied classics at St John’s College, Oxford. Although he was a fine scholar, he failed to gain an Honours degree, and spent some years in the Patent Office in London whilst continuing his studies independently. A series of brilliant academic articles secured him the Professorship of Latin at London University in 1892 and he went on the become Kennedy Professor of Latin at Cambridge and a Fellow of Trinity College. Housman’s first and most famous volume of poetry was A Shropshire Lad (1896), which was followed by several other collections. He died in Cambridge in 1936 and was buried in his beloved Shropshire.

Agnes Miller Parker (1895–1980) was associated with the group of artists known as Vorticists, active in London in the 1920s. The main body of her work consists of striking wood engravings for book illustration.

Alfred Edward Housman (1859-1936) was born and brought up in the Bromsgrove region of Worcestershire, adjacent to Shropshire, and was educated locally and at St John's College, Oxford. Though he was a fine scholar, he failed to gin an Honours degree, and spent some years in the Patent Office in London. A series of brilliant academic articles secured him the Professorship of Latin at London University and he went on the become Kennedy Professor of Latin at Cambridge and a Fellow of Trinity College. Most famous for A Shropshire Lad (1896), Last Poems was published in 1922, More Poems appeared posthumously and Collected Poems in 1939.