This is a new study and interpretation of the much loved poet, A. E. Housman, best known for his poems A Shropshire Lad. But there was so much more to this enigmatic person, our greatest classicist who penned some of the loveliest poetry ever written. In this book, Waine investigates Housman’s enigmatic and brilliant mind, and shows, with empathy and wit, how he located a complicated path on which to walk and flourish, despite the many brambles that lay on all sides of his lonely journey.
"W.H. Auden famously described A.E. Housman as keeping ‘tears like dirty postcards in a drawer’. An element of mystery has always surrounded the life of this intensely private man. In his quirky but compelling account of Housman’s development into both a renowned classical scholar (even after failing his undergraduate degree in Classics!) and the best selling author of A Shropshire Lad, Peter Waine casts fresh light on the oddities and obsessions that resulted in the rebarbative Housman ‘persona’, as well as in some of the most beautiful and moving lyrics in the English language. Richly detailed and elegantly written, this is a fascinating guide to the work of a poet whose admirers ranged from Oscar Wilde to Randall Jarrell."
— PROFESSOR MARK FORD, Professor of Poetry, UCL
"Peter Waine analyses the enigma of both man and work with a sympathetic, but discerning eye."
— CLIVE ASLET, Country Life