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A.E. Housman papers
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Held at: Bryn Mawr College [Contact Us]Bryn Mawr College Library, 101 N. Merion Avenue, Bryn Mawr 19010
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the Bryn Mawr College. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in their reading room, and not digitally available through the web.
Overview and metadata sections
Alfred Edward Housman, the English poet and classicist, was born on March 26, 1859 near Bromsgrove, Worcestershire. He was the elder brother of both Laurence Housman, the celebrated dramatist and Clemence Housman, an illustrator and political activist. When Housman was twelve his mother died from cancer and his father withdrew into alcoholism. Throwing himself into the study of Latin and Greek at the Bromsgrove School, he earned a scholarship to St. John's College, Oxford where his unrequited love for fellow classmate, Moses Jackson, seems to have contributed to his failure to pass his final examinations in 1881.
Despite this academic set-back, Housman did not lose interest in classical languages and continued to study on his own at the British Museum in his spare time while he worked as a patent clerk in London. Several articles he produced during this time on classical poets and playwrights were published in Classical Review and Journal of Philology. He was appointed to the Chair of Greek and Latin at University College, London in 1892.
An increasingly withdrawn and solitary man, Housman began to write the series of poems which was eventually published as A Shropshire Lad in 1896. The collection, which touched on the themes of rural life, the military, death, and unrequited love did not sell well until the eruption of the Second Boer War in 1899. Although war and its effects on British society would help secure Housman's reputation as a poet, he would suffer the losses of his brother, George, in the Boer War and later his nephew, Clement, in World War I.
There was a considerable gap between A Shropshire Lad and his next collection, Last Poems, published in 1922. Housman filled this time with his continued academic studies and teaching. In 1911 he became the professor of Latin at Trinity College, Cambridge where he taught for more than 30 years. He focused on Latin poets, particularly Propertius and Ovid. During the years 1903-1930 he devoted himself to an edition of Manilius with commentaries and continued to publish articles on Greek and Latin topics. He gave a famous lecture "The Name and Nature of Poetry" in 1933, which detailed his considered opinions on the subject based on a lifetime of study and practice.
Housman maintained a wry sense of humor and a love for travel and good food throughout his life, including his last years when he was suffering from heart disease. Despite his illness he continued to lecture almost until his death in April of 1936.
For further information see, among other publications:
Graves, Richard Perceval. A.E. Housman, the Scholar-Poet. New York: Scribner, 1980.
Haber, Tom Burns. A.E. Housman. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1967.
Maas, Henry, ed. The Letters of A.E. Housman. London: Hart-Davis, 1971.
Page, Norman. A.E. Housman, a Critical Biography. New York: Schocken Books, 1983.
The collection is divided into seven sections: Incoming Correspondence, Outgoing Correspondence, Writings, Other Materials, Personal and Family Materials, and Graphic Materials. A.E. Housman materials can also be found in the Laurence Housman Collection. Personal Materials contains various memorabilia belonging to Housman including bookmarks, gifts from his students, and a map of Shropshire. Graphic Materials includes photographs, sketchbooks and loose drawings.
This collection was the gift of Seymour Adelman.
People
Subject
- Publisher
- Bryn Mawr College
- Finding Aid Author
- Alice Goff, Claire Liachowitz, Charles Reed, Amanda Young, Elizabeth Reilly, Melissa Torquato
- Finding Aid Date
- 2007 April
- Access Restrictions
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This collection is open for research.
- Use Restrictions
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The A.E. Housman papers are the physical property of Special Collections Department, Bryn Mawr College Library. Literary rights, including copyright, belong to the authors or their legal heirs and assigns.
Collection Inventory
Writers organized alphabetically by last name.
ALS, Kent Writes Housman "to report NO GO in the Shelley MSS as far as I am informed by careful enquirers particularly Mr. Peck of Exeter as per letters enclosed which have been given to me by Mr. O. Doughty."
Removed from RBR PR 4809 H15 A68 1936b
Folder also includes empty envelope in Grant Richard's hand: "2 photographs of AEH taken by Mrs. Grant Richards."
Recipients organized alphabetically by last name.
Each letter in this file is marked "ALS Trinity College, Cambridge" unless otherwise noted.
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This series is divided into three subseries: Seymour Adelman Correspondence, Houston Martin Correspondence, and Other Third Party Correspondence
Folder contains 13 letters by writers and others involved in the literary world. Letters appear to be responses to inquiries made by Martin regarding each writer's personal knowledge or impression of Housman. Writers of note include W. Somerset Maugham, Willa Cather, Louis Untermeyer, Allen Tate, and Hugh Walpole.
This series is divided into three subseries: Manuscripts, Published Writings, Notebooks and Miscellaneous Papers.
Red case stamped "Housman 1889." Contains daily temperature readings and notations of flowers in bloom.
Contains extensive notes on, and quotations from, classical texts and modern authors such as Edmund Burke, George Eliot, Goethe, Pascal, Burns, Lessing, Nietzsche, Cowper, Blake, Anatole France, Keats, Shelley, Arnold, and Lamb. Folder also contains photograph copy of book and copy of entry in auction catalog on 25 July 1978.
Contains extensive notes on, and quotations from, classical texts. Also contains notes and drafts towards the preface and text of Housman's 1930 edition of Manilius V, as well as for his lecture "The Name and Nature of Poetry" (delivered in 1933). Quoted authors include Swinburne, Wordsworth, Pope, Coleridge, Dryden, and Arnold. Folder also contains photograph copy of book and copy of entry in auction catalog on 25 July 1978.
This series is divided into two subseries: Miscellaneous and Death of A.E. Housman.
Folder includes 5 poetic parodies of Housman's works. 2 AMs, 2 clippings, and 1 TMs. Poems are by [R. Mundey], ESP Haynes, Rolfe Humphries, Gerald Gould, and Ernest Thomson.
Boxed MS of Clemens article on AEH, Mark Twain Quarterly with articles on AEH, essay "An Evening with AE Housman" by Clemens, and clipping of "Housman in America" also by Clemens.
Folder includes various press releases and essays with information on Housman and the collection, and materials regarding a lecture by Cleanth Brooks on Housman.
Journals include The Saturday Review, The Book-of-the-Month Club News and The Nation and Athenaeum among others.
Folder contains critical essays on Housman by Laurence Housman, William White, John Sparrow, and others.
Various clippings regarding exhibitions, publications, legacy, and biographical material.
(see also Laurence Housman Collection)
Contains poem "For My Funeral." Folder also contains clipping from New York Herald Tribune regarding the service.
4 poems, 1 clipping on occasion of Housman's death. Poetry by Witter Bynner, "H.B.," Blanche Bane Kuder, and one unidentified author.
4 ALsS, 1 TLS from publishers and colleagues.
This series is divided into three subseries: Miscellaneous Personal Materials, Laurence Housman Correspondence and Family Materials.
Newspaper clipping, possibly from Evening Standard, on suicide of Henry Clarkson Maclean, rumored to be Housman's lover. Housman reportedly kept this clipping in his copy of A Shropshire Lad at poem XLIV, which begins: "Shot? so quick, so clean an ending?"
L. Housman thanks his brother for his comments on his own works, including Green Arras and Angels and Ministers. LH also expresses his opinions of AEH's Last Poems and the Name and Nature of Poetry.
This series is divided into three subseries: A.E. Housman, Housman Family and Friends, Places and Miscellaneous Drawings.