A.E. Housman

Alfred Edward Housman was born in Fockbury, Worcestershire, England on March 26, 1859 and was the eldest of seven children. Housman only published two volumes of poetry during his life: A Shropshire Lad (1896) and Last Poems (1922). The majority of the poems in A Shropshire Lad, his cycle of sixty-three poems, were written after the death of Adalbert Jackson, Housman’s friend and companion, in 1892. These poems center around themes of pastoral beauty, unrequited love, fleeting youth, grief, death, and the patriotism of the common soldier. After the manuscript had been turned down by several publishers, Housman decided to publish it at his own expense, much to the surprise of his colleagues and students. Despite receiving acclaim as a scholar and a poet during his lifetime, Housman lived as a recluse, rejecting honors and avoiding the public eye. He died on April 30, 1936 in Cambridge. (Source)