# A. Housman

## Biography

Alfred Edward Housman, born in Fockbury, Worcestershire, England, on March 26, 1859, was a prominent English classical scholar and poet. The eldest of seven children, he showed early academic promise, particularly in Greek and Latin, and attended St. John's College, Oxford. Despite initial academic struggles, reportedly due to personal distractions, he eventually carved out a distinguished career.

Housman spent a decade as a clerk in the Patent Office in London, where he diligently pursued his independent classical studies. His meticulous textual criticism earned him a professorship of Latin at University College London in 1892, and later at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1911. Though renowned in his lifetime as a scholar, he is best remembered for his poetry. His most famous collection, A Shropshire Lad (1896), explored themes of pastoral beauty, fleeting youth, and unrequited love in a spare, melancholic style. He published Last Poems in 1922. Housman died on April 30, 1936, in Cambridge, leaving a legacy as both a brilliant classicist and a widely beloved poet.

## Books

- [A Shropshire Lad](https://samolit.com/books/96375)