§ A Shropshire Lad. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co. Ltd., 1896 8vo ( 174 x 11 mm, uncut). Half-title, title-page printed in red and black. Publisher’s parchment-backed blue-paper boards, paper spine label lettered vertically in red (variant A); a bit soiled, boards faded and rubbed at extremities with paper loss. Half green morocco slipcase, chemise. First edition, one of 350 copies of the English issue, of a whole edition of 500. (Carter & Sparrow 11)

A Shropshire Lad. New York: John Lane 1897 § 8vo ( 174 x 11 mm, uncut). Half-title, title-page (a cancel) printed in red and black. Publisher’s parchment-backed blue-paper boards, paper spine label lettered vertically in red (variant B); a bit soiled, boards faded. Gray buckram folding-case, red calf label. First edition, one of 150 copies of the American issue, of a whole edition of 500. (Carter & Sparrow 11 note)

§ A Shropshire Lad. London: Grant Richards Ltd., (1912) 32mo (129 x 86 mm, uncut). Half-title. Publisher’s red calf, ruled and decorated in blind, marbled endpapers, lettered in gilt; extremities a bit worn. Half red morocco slipcase, chemise. Housman’s own copy, with three autograph corrections in pencil: adding a colon to the end of a line in poem III and deleting commas from the middle of a line in poems V and XXXIV; also with an autograph note laid in recording the guesses of three of his friends (Verma, Gow, Desmond Macarthy) of the order of stanzas in poem LXIII.

§ A Shropshire Lad. London: The Richards Press Ltd., 1927 8vo (190 x 113 mm, uncut). Half-title. Publisher’s brown cloth, front cover and spine gilt-lettered. Signed by the author (“A. E. Houseman”) on the half-title.

§ Last Poems. London: Grant Richards Ltd., 1922 8vo (184 x 123 mm). Half-title; some scattered light foxing. Publisher’s blue buckram gilt, publisher’s printed white dust-jacket (chipped). First edition. (Carter & Sparrow 33)

Presentation copy, inscribed and signed on the half-title to a former University College London colleague: “A. E. Housman to P. P. Stevens 3 Nov. 1922”; accompanied by a magnificently scathing autograph letter signed by Housman to Stevens, 27 October 1922, 4 pages, with original autograph envelope, replying to the latter’s request for a presentation copy of Last Poems: “Certainly not. I have only 2 spare copies, and they are for the good and pure. The most shocking things about you ‘devotees of editions’ are the shamelessness with which you avow your vice and the calm stupidity with which you stab the vanity of authors. How do you suppose we feel when we hear all this fuss made about the difference between a 1^st edition and 10^th? The only merits of any edition are correctness and legibility. This astounds you; and when I tell you that the first edition contained an error which is corrected in the second, you will be ready to tear your hair.

“I told the publishers to send a copy on publication to one of your fellow devotees, who insincerely pretends, like you, to be interested in my poetry. When he got it, he could not wait to read it, he despatched it to me by the next post for my autograph. I am really glad when I hear that knavish booksellers are practicing extortion on fellows of your sort, and demanding sums which range from 7/6 to a guinea, according as the cust.mes r looks a lesser or greater fool.

“However, in consideration of the Tankard, and your share in my education, I am prepared to autograph a copy of the 2^nd edition, if you like to buy one; but as it has the proper number of stops on p. 52, you may think 5/- too high a price.

“How are you earning your bread? Honestly, I hope.” A note by Paul Pearman Stevens explains that when Housman took a professorship at Trinity College in 1911, as Secretary of Arts, he presented Housman with a “Tankard & some volumes (‘to help his education’).” Stevens also writes that while Housman directed him to purchase a copy of Last Poems, he sent this copy of the first edition, with the periods lacking from page 52. Letter housed in a Scribner’s envelope with an autograph description on the front panel by John Carter. (Letters, ed. Burnett, I:520)

§ Last Poems. London: Grant Richards Ltd., 1922 8vo (184 x 123 mm). Half-title; some scattered light foxing. Publisher’s blue buckram gilt. First edition. (Carter & Sparrow 33)

§ A Shropshire Lad. [&] Last Poems. (Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire: Printed by H. P. R. Finberg at the Alcuin Press, 1929.) 2 volumes, 8vo (243 x 160 mm, uncut). Title-pages printed in red and black, some red printing throughout. Holland-backed blue-gray boards, printed paper spine labels (duplicates at rear); corners just bumped. Half brown Morocco slipcase, chemise. Limited edition, of 325 copies (or sets).

A very fine set of this attractive private press edition, signed by Housman in Shropshire Lad and with four related autograph letters signed by Housman. In letter tipped to a front blank, 31 August 1931, 2 pages, Housman explains to Dr. J. Kirk Richardson of Richmond, Virginia, his reason for signing the Shropshire volume only: “I return your books under separate cover, with my signature. This edition, though in two volumes, is treated by the printers as one book, and in signing it I therefore sign only the first volume: the second volume has no prober page for a signature. I hope you will think this correct, as others have done.” Shropshire is signed on a second blank leaf immediately preceding the title; in Last Poems, the title-page is the first printed lead, directly after the free endpaper. (Richardson, however, evidently treated the edition as two books, putting his bookplate in each volume.)

In two earlier letters, 19 July & 10 August 1931, each one page and tipped to the slipcase chemise, Housman keeps Richardson apprised on the signing, agreeing “to write my name in your copies of my books, if you will be good enough to send with them an envelope or other enclosure in which I can return them without trouble.” In the final letter of the cycle, 25 September 1931, Trinity College, Cambridge, one page, with autograph envelope, Housman acknowledges a gift from Richardson: “I am already acquainted with Father [John Banister] Tabb’s poetry, but I am glad to have the volumes you have been kind enough to send me, and I thank you for the gift.” (none of the four is published in Letters, ed. Burnett)

§ More Poems. London: Jonathan Cape, 1936

8vo (200 x 145 mm). Half-title, frontispiece reproduction of a portrait of Housman by Francis Dodd. Publisher’s blue buckram gilt. First edition. (Carter & Sparrow 41)

§ A Fragment preserved by oral tradition and said to have been composed by A. E. Housman in a dream. [Woking: Unwin Brothers for] (John Carter and John Sparrow, 1930 4to bifold (172 x 135 mm). An unauthorized leaflet printing a quatrain by Housman (“The bells jostle in the tower / The hollow night amid, / And on my tongue the taste is sour / Of all I ever did”) circulated as a Christmas card. This copy is inscribed by Carter, “This is no 2 for the Mill House Press.” (Carter & Sparrow 37)

§ Memories of A. E. Housman, by Mrs. E. W. Symons. Bath: J. Grant.mes lish, (1936) 8vo (238 x 148 mm) offprint from The Edwardian, Vol. 17, No. 3, September 1936. Self-wrappers, stapled. Contains light and humorous verses by Housman not previously published. (Carter & Sparrow 43)

§ My Brother, A. E. Housman: Personal Recollects ions Together with Thirty Hitherto Unpublished Poems by Laurence Housman. New York. Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1938 8vo (213 x 148 mm). Publisher’s blue cloth. (Carter & Sparrow 48 for the Jonathan Cape English edition)

§ W. Stanley Jevons. Elementary Lessons in Logic. Inductive and Inductive. With Copious Questions and Examples, and Vocabular of Logical Terms. Sixth edition London. Macmillan and Co., 1877.

8vo (152 x 98 mm). Half-title, a few text diagrams, 44-page Macmillan catalogue, July 1877, and 2 other ad leaves at end. Publisher’s blind-stamped russet cloth gilt, peach-coated endpapers, red-sprinkled edges, Blackwell ticket on front pastedown; extremities rubbed, hinges cracked.

A. E. Housman’s copy, extensively annotated by him in pencil, probably while a student St. John’s College, Oxford, and with a bookplate, “From the Library of A. E. Housman.” Housman appears to have read Jevons’s treatise closely at first—his annotations appear on pages 9, 43, 75, 79, 80, 82, 83, and 90—before abandoning the text in frustration. His comments all take issue with the author’s conclusions but vary in length from a simple “no” to rather more discursive commentary. For instance, on page 82, Jevons writes, “If in ‘all metals are elements’ we were simply to transpose the terms, thus—‘all elements are metals,’ we imply a certain knowledge about all elements, whereas it has been clearly shewn that the predicate of A is undistributed, and that the convertend does not really give us any information concerning all elements.” Housman marks this passage with an x, underscores the words of the transposition, and responds in the lower margin, “this is not to transpose the terms: to transpose the terms would give ‘elements are all metals.’”

¶ Autograph manuscript or transcript signed, of poem XVII of Last Poems, “Astronomy,” possibly prepared as printer’s copy for that collects ion, 12 lines and title on a sheet of blue-ruled paper (322 x 202 mm); lightly soiled fold creases and short separations.

There is a single draft of “Astronomy” in Housman’s Notebooks, on page 221 of notebook B. That draft was probably written in 1901 or 1902 and differs from this manuscript and the published poem in several instances. For example, in the third line of the second stanza, Housman employs the word “hauled” in the draft; it is here changed to “hove.”

“Astronomy” had at least two inspirations. Tom Burns Haber wrote in “A. E. Housman: Astronomer-Poet,” an article in English Studies Vol. 35 (1954), that “Those who hold to the belief of the permanence of very early influences will find support in A. E. Housman’s infant affection for astronomy”—an affection and interest he maintained throughout his life. But the poem had a more somber stimulus as well: the death of his brother, George Herbert Housman, who was killed in action during the Boer War. “Astronomy” was anthologized in 1904 before appearing in Last Poems as written here

Handwritten versions of poems from A Shropshire Lad, Last Poems, and More Poems are extremely rare on the market. While manuscript examples of his light and humorous verse are somewhat more common (though none are cited in Rare Book Hub for more than twenty years), we find only two other examples from his three major works recorded in Rare Book Hub for more than a century: the autograph manuscripts of “Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries” in 1988 and of Shropshire poem LIV (“With rue my heart is laden”) in 1927. The poem is accompanied by a typed letter signed by Tom Burns Haber, 19 November 1952, Department of English, Ohio State University, to the then-owner of the manuscript, Joseph S. Sample. Housed in a blue cloth portfolio gilt.

¶ Autograph prose fragment, unsigned, on a slip of blue-ruled paper (87 x 183 mm) undated, but ca. 1920–1936, reflecting, rather darkly, on loyalty: “What man most loves is flattery, and the dog is the creature which sells flattery cheapest. If you want it from wife or child you must pay a bitter price for it: you must deserve it. But feed, your dog, let him run about an annoy your neighbours within the ample limits prescribed him by man-made law (I thank thee, woman, for teaching me that word), and he will give your heart’s desire.” Housed in a Scribner’s envelope with an autograph description on the front panel by John Carter: “An unpublished and highly characteristic fragment in dispraise of dog-lovers. The passage is complete in itself, and is entirely in Housman’s autograph, though unsigned. The MS is not dated, but the writing suggests the last 20 years of his life.”

¶ Manuscript transcription, one page (206 x 172 mm) on a leaf of blue-ruled paper, in the hand of, and signed by, Laurence Housman, of A. E. Housman’s poem “The Sage to the Young Man,” which, the poet’s brother writes, “was deleted from the ‘Shropshire Lad,’ & never published,” but which he included in More Poems. The published poem is eight quatrains; the transcription features only four, in order: the first, third, sixth, and fifth.

¶ Photographic portrait print of Housman signed (233 x 150 mm), probably taken about the t.mes of the publication of A Shropshire Lad but printed later, light sepia tone, three-quarter bust profile looking left, signed (“A. E. Housman”) lower right.

Signed photographs of Housman are very uncommon. We have been able to trace references to only two in Rare Book Hub, none since 1976.

¶ Autograph letter signed, 12 May 1897, 17 North Road, Highgate N., 4 pages, incorporating an autograph poem; browned, some repairs. “There is a notice of Gods and their Makers in last week’s Athenaeum: I don’t know if it is depreciating enough to suit your taste.” Gods and their Makers was a mythological novel by Laurence published in 1897. Housman then turns to George Darley, the Irish author, whose “poem “Nepenthe” Laurence had evidently quoted to his brother. “George Darley was the writer of the excellent sham 17^th century song ‘It is not beauty I demand’ which Palgrave printed as genuine in the 2^nd part of the Golden Treasury. Because it was so good I read another thing of his, a sort of fairy drama whose name I forget [Sylvia; or, The May Queen], and was disappointed with it and read no more. But the piece you quote about the sea is capital. He was also the chief praiser of [Thomas Lovell] Beddoes’ first play [The Bride’s Tragedy], and a great detester of Byron’s versification when it was all the rage.”

Housman then makes his own pass at a sea poem. “The sea is a subject by no means exhausted. I have somewhere a poem which directs attention to one of its most striking characteristics, which hardly any of the poets seem to have observed. They call it salt and blue and deep and dark and so on; but they never make such profoundly true relexions as the following:—” There follows nine couplets contemplating the wetness of the sea: “O billows bounding far, / How wet, how wet ye are! / When first my gaze ye met / I said ‘Those waves are wet’. … Methinks ’twere vain to try / O sea, to wipe thee dry. / I therefore will refrain. / Farewell, though humid main.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:94–96 (text from Laurence’s memoir; not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 31 July 1906, one page. “Thank you for sending me the letter, which I return. I expect to go abroad about the 20^th of August, so before that t.mes I had better be told how much money I should send at present, and to whom.” Not in Letters, ed. Burnett.

¶ Autograph letter signed, 17 March 1907, 1 ½ pages, with an appended autograph note by Laurence. “I am sorry that your gifted pen should be employed in redirecting communication from Powick. If any more come you are welcome to throw them in the fire.

“She sent her aunt, who knows E. J. O., to look at.mes in the Caspase Galleries, and she didn’t recognize; so she is not sure, and perhaps I am my brother.” Housman took advantage of this situation to make a small joke in his closing: “Your (or my) affectionate brother.” Laurence’s gloss at the bottom of the second page reads, “This letter refers to a letter he had received from a lunatic who constantly wrote to him. ‘Powick[‘] is an asylum for mental cases in Worcestershire. LH.” Not in Letters, ed. Burnett.

¶ Autograph letter signed, 26 May 1908, 3 pages, accompanied by an autograph note by Laurence. “I enclose cheque for five guineas which Kate has asked me to send you towards the sundial in Bathwich cemetery [the churchyard of St. Mary the Virgin, Smallcombe]. I was down there last Saturday: the stone looks well enough, but the dial is conspicuously marked with an advertisement of the Birmingham Art Co. or whatever it is, which will have to be erased. The sign of our redemption, which has also been added, is less obnoxious, except that its addition to due to a lying priest.

“Kate and her family seem well, all or most of them having just had their tonsils cut out, which I presume to be salutorious. Kate appears to have developed the bad habit of waking up in the middle of the night and wondering what will happen to them all if Seymour drops down dead.

“I have not seen your play [perhaps The Chinese Lantern] announced in the papers, but I heard that it had been.” Laurence’s note explains that the letter “refers to a tombstone in the form of a sundial, which the Family had put up in Bath cemetery with room beneath it for six of us to be buried, It was in the Church of England section; and the Priest in charge of it refused to allow the stone to be erected unless it had on it a cross or some other sign of Christian belief, So a small cross had to be added—much to A E H’s annoyance. LH.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:220 (partial text only; not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 8 December 1925, 2 pages on a single leaf, seeming constructed (by Laurence?) by pasting two letters together or by eliminating the middle passage of a letter. “I am told that the boards of the A.D.C. are the best place for your plays and that the best person to write to is F. L. Birch of King’s, nominally Secretary but actually manager.

“An American named Keating wrote to me the other day and said he had bought a signed copy of A Shropshire Lad for £80.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:603 (partial text only, including a sentence taken from an extract printed in Laurence’s memoir not present here; not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 3 March 1933, one page. “I have seen the verses before, but I do not know where. They are not classical, and probably anonymous. Verses on this model were composed perhaps as early as the 4^th century after Christ, and also in the middle ages and at the Renaissance.” Not in Letters, ed. Burnett.

¶ Autograph letter signed, 15 June 1933, 4 pages, Tardebigge, describings his own “depression and causeless anxiety” and giving other family news. “I should very much enjoy the visit you propose … but I suppose I ought to warn you that I am not in rude health. On the pretext that my heart was all over the place, after walking too much, I suppose, in the hot weather, the doctor sent.mes to bed for a week in a nursing home, where the heart must have disappointed him bitterly, for it behaved with the utmost decorum. The real bother is what I have often had before in the course of my life, depression and causeless anxiety. But I do not require attention, and am not a nuisance to Jeannie. … I find that Kate did not know, so perhaps you may not, that Rosalie’s husband died last week. …” Letters, ed. Burnett, II:354 (partial text only, giving an incorrect place of composition; not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 30 November 1933, 3 pages, evidently declining to attend the premiere of Laurence’s new play Nunc Dimittis. “There was no enclosure in your letter, but I know what it was, and have already had an invitation from the people at University College, which, so far as I remember, I pretty explicitly declined. No doubt should enjoy seeing you wrestle with the King of Terrors, but though I am much better than I have been and no longer actually feeble, my spirits are rather low and the visit to London would worry me in prospect if not in act.

“The other day I received a very poor poem from Benjamin Swift [pen name of Scottish writer William Romaine Paterson] , who desired to be remembered to you. I suppose you saw Bertie Tullintgon’s(?) death in the paper a couple of months ago.” Letters, ed. Burnett, II:391 (partial text only; not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 10 April 1935, 2 pages. “I return your story, which I have found more entertaining than most communist propaganda. O see no prospect of being in London next month. I am wondering what sort of a Queen Victoria you will get.” Laurence Housman’s play Victoria Regina was staged privately in London in May 1935 and was produced on Broadway that same year. The play did not have a commercial production in London until 1937 because the Lord Chamberlain had decreed that no British sovereign could be portrayed on the stage until a century after his or her accession to the throne. The letter ends with the note, “Benjamin Swift in sending me a book sends kind regards to you.” Not in Letters, ed. Burnett.

¶ Autograph letter signed, 28 September 1904, 17 North Road, Highgate N., 1 ½ page, acceding to the fee of the printers to Grant Richard to print his edition of Juvenal. “I shall make no objection to the price of £70.17.11 now asked by the printers. It is probably exorbitant (they were most likely encouraged by the t.mes ness and promptitude with which I paid £84 for the Manilius), but never mind.” The first volume of Housman’s edition of Manilius’s Astronomicon appeared in 1903. Letters, ed. Burnett, I:165 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 15 July 1910, 2 pages. “I have received the photographs, which are quite satisfactory, and I am very grateful to you as well as to Maclagan and his hidalgo, for I should never have got them without your assistance.

“Also I must thank you for Masefield’s plays [The Tragedy of Nan, and Other Plays], which are well worth reading and contain a lot that is very good; only he has got the Elizabethan notion that in order to have tragedy you must have villains, and villains of disgusting wickedness or vileness.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:252 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 31 December 1911, 3 pages, commenting on a further volume of the Manilius. “I return the seven drawings of diagrams for the Manilius, and I return also my own original drawings, which must also be returned to the printer.

“The work is very nicely executed, and the only fault I find with it is that the artist has imitated too closely my own imperfect draughtsmanship. I have failed in several cases … the inequality is unpleasant to the eye and should be corrected somewhat as I have pencilled on the tissue paper.

“As to the size of the blocks, the chief matter to be considered us the following, It is important that the diagrams should be inserted exactly at those points in the letter-press which I have indicated in my mS, But when the preface is put into pages, it may happen that the end of a page will cut a diagram in two; and the greater the perpendicular height of the diagrams, the oftener this is likely to happen and the more difficult it will be remedy.

“The printers must remember to place under the diagrams the titles shown in my drawings.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:283 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 9 May 1914, 4 pages. A discursive description of a tour through France, with several restaurant reviews, but concluding, “The College library want as many edition as it can get of the Shropshire Las, so will you send me one specimen of each of those you now have on sale.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:324 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 10 July 1914, one page, commenting briefly on proofs of the Riccardi Press edition of A Shropshire Las: “These seem to be right.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:327 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 5 September 1914, one page. “I have corrected two misprints in the poem, and I have no objection to its being printed, as it was printed, I believe, in a similar connexion by Ross in a bibliography.

“Do not disturb Frank Harris in his beliefs, which are sincere and characteristic, that I am professor of Greek and that there are 200 pages in A Shropshire Lad. Letters, ed. Burnett, I:328 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 10 September 1914, one page, refusing permission to anthologize one his poems. “Permission must not be given: it has already been refused in a precisely similar case; and for 10 or 12 years I have adhered to the rule of not allowing my verses to appear in anthologies. Letters, ed. Burnett, I:329 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 18 September 1914, 20 Belmont, Bath, one page, permitting one of his poems to be set to music. “Mrs. Phipps may have permission to set to music the poem she mentions.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:329 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 1 December 1914, one page. “Miss Hacking may publish the two settings and give them the title which she suggests.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:332 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 11 February 1915, one page, again refusing an anthology. “I should be pleased oblige Mr [Edward] Thomas, whose book on Swinburne I thought very good; but I have been saying no to all anthologists for more than 12 years, and it is impossible to make an exception now.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:335 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 7 April 1915, 3 pages. I found here your gift of [Theodore] Dreiser’s book, which I have been skimming, and I am glad to see that he recognizes some of your many virtues.” In A Traveller at Forty, Dreiser described Richards as “a sort of modern Beau Brummel with literary, artistic and gormandizing tendencies.” The letter continues with anecdote concerning Cambridge mathematician James Whitbread Lee Glaisher: “The mathematician whom you sat next to at our high table, upon hearing that I had been to the Riviera with you, said that he hoped you had not been running after women all the t.mes . Whether this was an inference from your conversation or a generalization from his own experience of travelling-companions I do not know. …” Housman returns to the Dreiser book in a sardonic postscript: “Pages 71–86 are missing in my copy. I am not starving for them, but you may like to drop in on your binder.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:339 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 14 April 1915, 2 pages, trying to dismiss Richards’s misgivings about Glaisher’s comment. “You should not let what the mathematician said worry you. When his mind is not occupied by mathematics or pottery it is apt to run on the relations of the exes, and seldom sit next to him without that topic arriving. He possesses all the editions of Fanny Hill, a book with which I daresay you never polluted your mind, The question he asked would probably have been asked about anyone else who had been travelling with me. You told me that the Belmont Bax made some sad enquiry about.mes .” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:340 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 17 May 1915, one page, approving another request to set his poems to music. “Mr. H. S. Goodhart-Rendel has my permission to publish, without payment of any fee, his settings of the three poems he mentions.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:341 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

The following thirteen letters, through 1 February 1916, deal almost exclusively with Housman’s meticulousness in seeing through the press the third book of his edition of Manilius’s Astronomicon, a work, he teases Richards, that is more “classy” than most of what the Richards Press publishes. For his part, Richards wrote of the Manilius in his memoir, “no printer has a greater number of compositors and readers competent to handle efficiently an expeditiously such a manuscript.”

¶ Autograph letter signed, 15 July 1915, 2 pages. “I am sorry I cannot avail myself of your kind and attractive invitation, as early in August I am going to stay with my sister and brother-in-law at Dulverton, and must first finish the text and notes of my 3^rd book of Manilius, which, though it will not sell so well as your novel, is really a much more classy work.” Richards had just published Bittersweet, his third novel.

“The printers, if they have not all gone to the war, may just as well be printing this while I am on my holiday, and I should be grateful if you would make arrangements, he preface is already written in the rough, and will be ready for them when they are ready for it. Letters, ed. Burnett, I:343 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 17 July 1915, one page, again turning down an anthologist. “Mr Leslie Brooks must be informed that for 12 years back I have adhered to the rule of not allowing poems of mine to be printed in selections.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:343 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 28 July 1915, 2 pages. “Many thanks for the novel. I remember correctly where I left off, and can start from that point, so you see that the pen and ink of genius have burnt themselves into my brain. About the Manilius, if it is not the preface but the text and notes that I shall have ready first. I will send these to your office, as you tell me, in about 10 days, with directions to the printers. But who are the printers? If Maclehose, as last t.mes , don't trouble to reply, but enjoy your holiday.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:343–44 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 5 August 1915, 2 pages. “In accordance with the directions of Mr Grant Richards I am sending you today by Parcel Post, Registered, the manuscript of the Text and Notes of my edition of Manilius, Book III, and I shall be obliged to you if you will acknowledge it's receipt.

“I understand from Mr Richards that the printing is to be put in hand at once. A copy of the edition of Book II should be sent to the printers as a model; and I shall also be obliged if you will convey to them the directions which I enclose on a separate sheet.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:344 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 16 October 1915, 2 pages, each struck through with a blue crayon. “I do rather think that the birthday etc. might go off better if no irrelevant visitor were there to spoil the fun; and so, in spite of my affection for children, I shall like to postpone my visit. Probably any week-end in November that suited you would suit.mes . As to the blind people, they may have what they want.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:347 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 22 October 1915, one page, likely referring to a request to anthologize a poem. “Permission must be refused in this case.” The lower margin is endorsed, perhaps by Richards, “Women’s Employment Pub. Co.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:348 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 27 October 1915, 1 ½ pages. “I enclose, corrected, the proofs of the text and notes of Manilius III. They may now be combined and put into pages; and I enclose some directions to the printers about carrying this out. Please acknowledge receipt.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:348 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 21 November 1915, 2 pages. “I enclose the following portions of Manilius III.

“1. Corrected proof of Preface, which can now be put into pages.

“2. Revise of text and notes, which only requires two corrections.

“3. MS page to face p. 1.

“4. MS page to face P. 68.

“All that I shall have to add is the Index, which will be two or three pages.

“As the bulk of the volume can now be precisely ascertained, they had better begin making the cover, which will be just the same as that of Book II (price and all), except that secundus will be tertius, and the date MDCCCCXVI, and that the label on the back will have III instead of II.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:349 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 11 December [corrected in blue crayon from November] 1915. “I enclose the MS of the index to Manilius III, which completes the book, and I also return the paged proofs with some further corrections. By the way, in the process of putting into pages, two errors were introduced which were not in the slips, on PP. 25 and 57. I hope that these are the only two, and that the future will not produce others. …” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:349 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 14 December 1915, one page. “it will not be necessary for me to see again the proofs of Manilius III down to p 64; but the printers and their proof-readers must not make any alteration, even the slightest, on their own responsibility without asking me.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:350 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 22 December 1915, one page. “I enclose the last pages of Manilius III with two corrections, and the book may now be printed and published without any more tinkering from me.” A postscript conveys Housman’s “compliments of the season.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:351 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

The following sequence of letters from 1916 are still focused on matters of printing and publication, but they also reveal the encroachment of the Great War into the lives of Housman and Richards. The letter of 5 December contains a darkly humorous fantasy about A Shropshire Lad in the trenches.

¶ Autograph letter signed, 8 January 1916, 2 pages. “I write about Manilius III, and shall probably write again, not out of impatience, but because, when book II was publishing, you and the printers went to sleep in each other’s arms for a whole month and then wrote to ask me for corrections though I had said there would be none. I sent all that I had to send before Christmas. I hope that, as I suggested, the binding is being got ready, so that the rest of the book will not have to wait for it.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:352 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 1 February 1916, one page. “The cover and label, which I return, are correct, and I have corrected the two errors queried in the proofs, which I also return.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:352 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 3 February 1916, 3 pages. “When you say you ‘would like to’ go to France with me, is that a mere sigh or a serious wish? Because I shall be both agreeable to it and desirous of it; only I understand the difficulties now put in the way of getting a passport are almost impossible. In any case I should not make the venture without a courier such as you to protect.mes .

“Can I induce you to come and stay with me a night or two some t.mes this term? Oldmeadow is going to be dining in hall on Sunday the 20th with the Roman Catholic Monsignor, if that will attract you, and possibly, though I'm not sure, I might get him to dine with me on the Saturday. But any date that would suit you would probably suit.mes .” Richards had published Ernest Oldmeadow’s novel Antonia in 1909 and had sent a copy to Housman. The monsignor in question was probably the Reverend Christopher Scott, Provost of Northampton and Rector of the Church of the English Martyrs, Cambridge.

Housman closes with a cryptic reference to The Studio: An Illustrated Magazine of Fine & Applied Arts: “I have not been able to see the Studio yet.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:353 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 10 February 1916, 2 pages. “I am writing to tell you, directly on hearing it myself, that cerebro-spinal meningitis exists among the soldiers quartered in this college, who are supposed to have brought it with them from Ashford. I'm not going to stir, and I believe that infection is conveyed only by close association; but consider whether this will make you change your mind about coming here on the 19th, and let.mes know as soon as it's convenient to you.

“Mrs. Richards is exceedingly kind, but I should not think of going abroad with the two of you, even if date suited. I hope it will set both of you up.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:353–54 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 15 February 1916, one page. “Yes, Mr Farrar may have what he wants.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:354 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 15 February 1916, one page. “I returned the printers’ query with the answer added.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:354 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 2 March 1916, 2 pages. “W. S. Merrill published in 1907 an edition of Lucretius, containing nothing original, but collects ing the work of others with that bibliographical fulness in which Americans excel. He has since changed his opinions on the text and developed originality as a reactionary, and his obtuseness enables him to stick to the reading of the manuscripts in many places where the critics whom he formerly followed abandoned them. I have a very low opinion of his intelligence, and he is bumptious into the bargain.

“I hope if you do succeed in getting abroad with Mrs. Richards, I shall hear of your success.” In a postscript Housman adds, “Probably you will have seen a notice of your uncle in last week's Oxford Magazine, written I suppose by the Warden or someone else at Wadham.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:356 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 28 March 1916, one page. “I am assuming that you either were not on the Sussex, or are one of the rescued.” The Richardses had been considering crossing the channel in late March; the Sussex was torpedoed by a German U-boat on 24 March off the coast of France.

“I enclose a list of the papers and persons to whom I wish copies of Manilius III to be sent.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:358 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 29 March 1916, 2 pages. “There are corrections to be made on pp. 18, 27, 35, 49, 95. The sinking of the Sussex is no deterrent to me; quite the reverse. I argue this: only a certain number of steamers are destined to sink; one of that number has sunk already without.mes on board; and that diminishes by one the number of my chances of destruction. But women cannot reason, so I suppose your designs are knocked on the head.

“I have pretty well made-up my mind to go out at least as far as Paris, probably about April 20th.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:358 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 9 April 1916, 2 ½ pages. “Last year you proved so much better informed than Cooks and Constables that I am prepared to accept whatever you say; but the Military Permit Office has just written to me: ‘I am unable to state definitively by which route you will be allowed to proceed, as alterations are at present taking place.’

“Many thanks for your invitation to Bigfrith, but I think I had better hold myself free from engagements, as I have several things to do before I go.

“I don’t know if you sent copies of Manilius III to the list of persons and papers I gave you; but, if so, some of them at any rate have not reached their destination.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:360 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 15 April 1916, 2 pages. “Not on account of mines or torpedoes, which I despise as much as ever, but because the Folkestone route is closed and the voyage by Southampton-Howe, without the solace and protection of your company, is a long and weary subtraction from the short holiday I meant to take, I am not going to France.

“Many thanks for the present of Valpy’s [1819 edition of] Manilius from you and your relatives. I had the edition already, but not so neat a copy.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:360–61 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 4 October 1916, 2 pages. “My young friend who was at Oundle is now lost to my sight in the R. A . M. C. [Royal Army Medical Corps] and I have not heard from him for six months; and as he left school six or seven years ago, his information might not be up to date.”

The second paragraph is the epit.mes of Housman’s passive-aggressive criticism: “Thanks for the copy of A Shropshire Lad; but I wonder why the printer, when directed to remove a comma from the end of a verse on p. 49, turned it upside down and added it at the beginning.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:367 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 16 October 1916, 1 ½ pages. “I shall be delighted to see you both at lunch on the 31st. Let.mes know whether it shall be 1.45 or 2 o’clock.” The Richardses were in Cambridge during a bookselling tour of England and Scotland.

“Thanks for the note from the printers. If they are guiltless their predecessors seem to have been extraordinarily wicked.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:367 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 7 November 1916, 2 pages. “I hope you and Mrs. Richards enjoyed your tour, — or are enjoying it, as I don't know if you are back yet.

“But what I am writing about is this. A friend of mine (and acquaintance of yours) went to Bower and Bower today and asked for a 6d. copy of A Shropshire Lad. They brought it, but charged him 1/– for it, saying that it had gone up to this owing to the war. I said I thought probably they were out of 6d. copies and offered him a 1/– one instead, but he sticks to his story.” Richards had, in fact, doubled the price of A Shropshire Lad as a hedge against rising costs during the war—and had pointedly not consulted Housman on the matter. Letters, ed. Burnett, I:370 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 5 December 1916, 3 pages. “It would have given me great pleasure to come and see you and Mrs Richards, but I am engaged to spend the week-end in London, if the government allows me to travel at all.” Travel may have been particularly restricted at this moment, since Asquith resigned as prime minister this very day and Lloyd George did not succeed until the following.

“Your Hun hunter at Clare, from your account, must have troubles enough without adding me; and I for the last three weeks have been having a series of three colds on the top of one another. But if you like to let.mes know his name and rank, perhaps I may try to make his acquaintance when I am better.” The “Hun hunter” was Captain Desmond Young, co-author of a book titled The Hun Hunters published by Richards.

“I do not make any particular complaint about your doubling the price of my book, but of course it diminishes the sale and therefore diminishes my chance of the advertisement to which I am always looking forward: a soldier is to receive a bullet in the breast, and it is to be turned aside from his breast by a copy of A Shropshire Lad which he is carrying there. Hitherto it is only the Bible that has performed this trick.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:370–71 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

Through the rest of the ‘Teens and into the early Twenties, well established topics reappear: new editions of A Shropshire Lad with new printing errors introduced; repeated requests to anthologize the poems or set them to music; a new volume of the edition of Manilius; and travel—and the restrictions placed on it by the War and its aftermath. Newer topics emerge as well, including the conception of a new collects ion of poems and Housman’s growing contempt for Americans.

¶ Autograph letter signed, 11 January 1917, one page. Housman repeats his prohibition on anthologizing his verse, yet points out a loophole: “Will you tell the lady that I do not give permission to print my poems in anthologies, but remind her that in America I neither possess nor claim any control in the matter.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:372 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 14 January 1916, 2 ½ pages. “Thanks for cheque, for which I enclose receipt.

“There must also be some account to be regulated between us about Manilius III. I sent you £50 on account, but the production probably cost more. But I see you say you have only got out accounts to the end of 1915.

“When I last saw you, you made a light and easily-forgotten promised to let.mes know the average sale of A Shropshire Lad of late years.

“When I was in London on New Year's Day, I was not my own master. I was discharging an important mission, tasting wines in company with other members of the Wine Committee of the College.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:372–73 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 24 January 1917, one page. Housman’s generosity towards composers continues: “1. Mr A. Marleyn may have permission to publish his setting of Bredon Hill.

“2. Mr Goodhart-Rendel may have permission to publish his setting of The Recruit.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:373 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 4 March 1917, one page, reporting on books sent to him by Richards from the publisher’s current list, including The Decline of Liberty in England by E. S. P. Haynes: “Yes, I have read Haynes' book, and thought it very well written and full of good sense.

“I forget if I ever thanked you for sending me the Nevinson, if not I do so now.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:374–75 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 20 June 1917, one page. “Vaughn Williams did have an interview with me six years or more ago, and induced me by appeals ad misericordiam to let him print words on the programme of a concert for which he had already made arrangements; but the permission applied to that concert only. I knew what the results would be, and told him so.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:380 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 14 October 1917, one page. “I have sent the book to Secker, and called on M. Withers, who seems an agreeable man.” Martin Secker had, through Richards, asked for a signed copy of A Shropshire Lad. Percy Withers, in Cambridge on some sort of war work, had asked Richards for a letter of introduction to Housman.

“The young friend who was educated at Oundle has been staying with me, and says it is probably the best equipped school in England for engineering.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:381–82 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 3 November 1917, one page. A terse reply to a request: “I do not allow my verses to be printed in concert programmes.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:382 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 19 April 1918, 1 ½ pages. “Messrs Winthrop Rogers Ltd. may publish the two songs as they wish.

“It was kind of you to write to me from Nice: I did not answer, because I had nothing particular to say. I hope Mrs. Richards is now well, and that you both enjoyed your outing as much as circumstances permitted.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:388 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 6 June 1918, one page. Housman accedes to Richards raising the price of A Shropshire Lad in light of increased costs: “The working classes at any rate can well afford to pay 1/6, though I don't know if 5000 of them will want to.

“I'm not likely to come to town, so far as I can see.

“P. Withers, who is back again here, was asking after you the other day.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:389–90 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 14 June 1918, one page. Housman seems here to somewhat begrudgingly suspend his rule against anthologizing his verse to accommodate a Braille collects ion intended for those wounded in battle. “I suppose I must follow the example of the anonymous great poet (very likely Alfred Noyes) and relax the rule, in order that the poem may be read by blind soldiers.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:390 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 25 November 1918, 1 ½ pages. Housman considers Richards sufficiently recovered from pneumonia to attend to some printer’s errors he had discovered in a recent impression of A Shropshire Lad. “Yours is a terrible long illness, but I am glad that you seem to be fairly comfortable.

“I have sent to your office a list of 8 mistakes in the 8vo edition, probably all taken over from 1916. The smaller editions (except the cursed ‘Lesser Classics)’ have a purer text, with only one error I think; but this reappears in the last issue (for which by the way I ought to have begun by thanking you): p. 5 (only the 5 is invisible), last line but two, these should be a colon after town.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:394 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 14 March 1919, one page, the text struck through in black ink. “The same answer should be made to Mrs Hillman as to the other American lady about whom I wrote yesterday.” No letter of the preceding day, or preceding week, for that matter, but one can assume that the answer was denying a request of some kind. Letters, ed. Burnett, I:404 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 21 July 1919, 3 ½ pages. “Many thanks for your letter, and for Belloc’s, which I return. I'm afraid we are not likely to travel together nor even to meet. I took a month’s change at midsummer, which I was much in need of, and now I have settled down to work; and also I rather think that August heat in France might put my health out of order again. …”

“As it appears that a military permit is still required for Paris I should be glad if you could tell me whether your Captain Reid is still in power and prepared to make things easy for me. Moreover I am not clear whether, after leaving Paris for the South, one can re-enter it without further trouble.

“Most likely I shall not stay long at Brive or any other place, but motor about. After my sacrifices for my country during the war I am beginning to spend money on myself instead of saving it up for the Welsh miners.” (Richards reported that Housman had donated several hundred pounds to the war effort.)

“Please keep me informed of your plans, and let.mes know when you come back, as I ought to have the text and notes of Manilius IV ready before I go, and they may as well be printing while I am away. …” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:411 (partial text, from Richards’s memoir, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 23 July 1919, one page. “Thank you for your note. As the post now goes to Germany, will you please send copies of my Manilius book III to the six addresses, enclosed? Though I observe that one is in Austria, which probably is still out of bounds.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:412 (from Richards’s memoir, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 24 August 1919, 2 ½ pages. “Your office is very kindly and dexterously secured me the French visa, but unluckily it is for Boulogne, whereas I am going by Dieppe. I ought to have mentioned this particular, but I did not think of it. I do not know if the Consulate is like Pontius Pilate and refuses to alter what it is written, but in the hope that this is not so I am again enclosing the passport, if I can ask you to try to get it amended. As this is Sunday and there are no postal orders about, I enclose a 10/– note, in case it is wanted.

“I shall have to come to town someday this week; And if there is any day (other than Saturday) on which you could lunch with me at the Café Royal, I wish you would let.mes know what day it is, and would also engage a table there in my name.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:413 (from Richards’s memoir, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 14 September 1919, Brive, 2 pages. “It is quite right to stick to Maclehose.

“If you do not intercede to prevent it, what will happen is this. On Wednesday the 24th I shall arrive at Bigfirth some t.mes in the afternoon, in a motor which will deposit.mes with a small bag, containing little except a clean shirt, and will take my larger luggage on to Cambridge; and there you will have me for two nights.

“I'm returning to Paris, Hôtel Terminus St Lazare, on Thursday the 18th. There I shall be till Tuesday the 23rd, when I shall cross, and sleep at Newhaven. I should like to hear from you as soon as I reach Paris, because I shall have to write to Cambridge about the motor.

“The passage of the channel is as good as could be.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:415 (partial text, from Richards’s memoir, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 9 October 1919, 2 pages. Housman’s tepid response to À la recherche du temps perdu. “I have not finished Proust’s book, but I've read enough to form the opinion that an English translation would not sell, and, apart from that, could not be really satisfactory, as the merit of the French is in great part a matter of addiction and vocabulary. Moreover, the 2nd section of the book, in which I am now rather stuck, is not at all equal to the first. The 2nd volume, I am told, is not good.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:418 (from Richards’s memoir, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 4 November 1919, one page. “Mr. Ireland is at liberty to publish his setting of the poem without fee.” Not in Letters, ed. Burnett.

¶ Autograph letter signed, 30 November 1919, 2 pages. “I have thought of 6/–net as the price for Manilius IV. Of course the increase in the cost of production is greater than that, but I have always sold at less than cost price, so it does not make the difference between profit and loss.

“This reminds me that it is just three months since I sent you the manuscript, and I wonder when the printers are going to start upon it.

“Thanks for the book on wines: but mortal passions have invaded the sacred precincts of the cellar to such an extent that he knows of no German or Hungarian wine and does know of stuff from Australia and California.” The author Housman refers to is André Simon and the book, Wine and Spirits: The Connoisseur’s Textbook, which he had solicited from Richards. Richards blamed the publisher, Gerald Duckworth, for the seeming imbalance of the text. Letters, ed. Burnett, I:421 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 16 December 1919, 1 ½ pages. Housman protests Richards’s plan to reissue an illustrated gift-book edition of A Shropshire Lad, originally released in 1908. “This is molestation and persecution. You sent.mes the proofs to correct when this edition was preparing, and when you do that there are practically no errors. I am too full at the moment of more interesting work to waste my t.mes trying to find mistakes where none are likely to be. Besides I have a copy of the edition, probably more than one.” Housman adds in a postscript, “If you do not like illustrations, why did you print this edition? It was all you're doing, none of mine; and I thought the public quite right in not buying it.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:425 (from Richards’s memoir, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 2 January 1920, 2 pages. “The installment of Manilius which I received yesterday consisted of 8 slips; but with them came not only the corresponding 46 pages of MS, but also 10 more pages of MS with no slips to correspond. So now I expect there will be a long pause, and when the printers are asked about it they will say they are held up by having unfortunately mislaid pp 47–56 of the authors MS. Or possibly there are two slips more which they have omitted to send.

“As to your note about the binding, that does not matter very much, but I hope the sort of paper on which the book is printed is still to be had.” Housman closes with wishes for a happy new year. Letters, ed. Burnett, I:426 (from Richards’s memoir, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 21 January 1920, one page. Housman comments on a French translation, apparently never published, of A Shropshire Lad. “The translation is literal, as he claims for it, except where it is a mistranslation, as it was and then is; and it is not affected or pretentious. But it is a very commonplace affair, and both the diction and the verse are poor.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:429 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 3 March 1920, one page. Waiting on proofs. “It is a fortnight since I have received any proofs of Manilius IV, though you told me that the printers promised you to send the whole book in proof at the beginning of December.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:433 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 28 September 1920, 3 pages. Housman deprecates his portraits, photographic and otherwise. “Oh, damn the Bookman. The author wrote to me some months ago, asking for private particulars, and I thought that my reply had chilled him off. I have not been photographed, I think, since 1894: that was the year when I was beginning to write A Shropshire Lad, and if for that reason they would care to have it, I could send you one, as I do not want to seem churlish. As to Rothenstein, his portraits are 15 years ago, and one of them, the one he shows in exhibitions, is a venomous libel, to which he adds fresh strokes whenever he feels nasty. This is full face; the other one more side face, he reserves for his private delectation.

“Now I think of it, I was photographed by Oppé [that is, E. O. Hoppé] also about 15 years ago, and I think I'd rather lately received a copy for the first t.mes ; but I do not know what I have done with it.” A profile of Housman by John Freeman appeared in the November 1920 Bookman. Letters, ed. Burnett, I:452–53 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 5 January 1921, 2 pages. One of the first intimation of Last Poems, first mooted by Housman in a 5 September 1920 letter to Richards, who plainly eager to hear more. “‘My new book’ does not exist, and possibly never may. Neither your traveler nor anybody else must be told that it is even contemplated. What I asked you was a question inspired by an unusually bright and sanguine mood, which has not at present been justified.

“I saw E. B. Osborne's remarks, but they did not alter my opinion of him.” Burnett notes that in a review of Harold Monro’s Some Contemporary Poets, Osborn [Housman gave him a terminal e] had described Housman’s “‘smooth, shining tabloids of sent.mes ntality’ as ‘an antidote to the bulky pomposity of late Victorianism.’” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:463 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 27 September 1921, 2 pages. Despite permitting an article in The Bookman, Housman is seemingly not inclined to extend a similar courtesy to an American journal. “Tell him that the wish to include a glimpse of my personality in a literary article is low, unworthy, and American. Tell him that some men are more interesting than their books but my book is more interesting than its man. Tell him that Frank Harris found me rude and Wilfred Blunt found me dull. Tell him anything else that you think will put him off. Of course if he did nevertheless persist in coming to see me I should not turn him off, as I only do that to newspaper reporters.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:472–73 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 3 October 1922, 2 pages. “You must not print editions of A Shropshire Lad without letting me see the proofs. I've just been looking through the editions 1918 and 1921, and in both I find the same set of blunders in punctuation and ordering of lines, some of which I have corrected again and again, and the filthy beasts of printers for ever introduce them anew.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:513 (from Richards’s memoir, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 30 November 1922, one page. “Mr. Vickers can have what he wants, and any of his countrymen. I am told that Americans are human beings, though appearances are against them.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:526 (from Richards’s memoir, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 28 December 1922, 2 pages. “The wine has arrived, and I am very grateful. There is a great amateur of sherry in this college, with whom I must sample it.

“I am prepared to receive royalty from America for the sale of A Shropshire Lad. I suppose it will be the same as for Last Poems.

“In the copies of the small Shropshire Lad which you sent.mes a few weeks ago the corrections I gave you have not been made. Is that the case with all the 5000 (or whatever it was) which you had printed lately?” Housman closes with the wish for a happy new year. Letters, ed. Burnett, I:531 (from Richards’s memoir, not locating the original).

After a lacuna of more than three years—during which, judging by Burnett’s edition of The Letters, the rate of Housman’s correspondence with Richards was rather diminished—the present collects ion is renewed with sixteen letters from the last decade of Housman’s life that  demonstrate a strain in the relationship between author and publisher, as well as a precipitous decline in Housman’s health.

¶ Autograph letter signed, 3 February 1926, one page. “A Shropshire Lad is still prohibited to anthologists. But you probably have in mind is that the Poet Laureate [Robert Bridges], having ascertained that I should not prosecute him, put three poems from it into his selection for schools.” Letters, ed. Burnett, I:611 (misattributing the letter to Stanford’s Cecil H. Green Library).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 9 March 1927, 3 ½ pages. “Thanks for your letters, and for your suggestions.

“I agree that the addition of A Shropshire Lad which is out of print ought to be reprinted, and, not being avaricious, I do not object to the royalty proposed, though I was told the other day by a bookseller that the practice of supplying booksellers with 13 copies when they only pay for 12 has ceased for about ten years. I also think it is t.mes that an edition of Last Poems in the same form, but at a less price, should be issued: say 3 shillings. I shall not think it proper to dictate about the imprint on the title-page. It is not my business to say what my publishers are to call themselves, however desirable it may be to annoy Scotch solicitors. I do not send a formal answer to the formal communication till I hear from you further.” Letters, ed. Burnett, II:14 (partial text only, from Richards’s memoir, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 15 March 1927, 3 pages. “Forgive me for not answering earlier your letter of the 5th inst. The Richards Press Ltd is at liberty to reprint A Shropshire Lad in the 3/6 edition, if it will promise me that proofs shall be submitted to me; but they must not at present print a larger edition than 2000 copies, and it must be understood that I remain at liberty to take the book away from them at any t.mes on paying the cost of production of existing copies.

“Without entering on the general question of the terms on which A Shropshire Lad is to be published, I shall be content in respect of this one edition with the royalty offered of fifteen percent, thirteen copies counting as twelve, this being the royalty which I receive on Last Poems. It will be understood that this does not limit my freedom of action in the future.” Letters, ed. Burnett, II:15–16 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 21 June 1928, 3 pages. “I have just returned from abroad, and find your two letters awaiting me. As to Messrs Chappell & Co., Mrs. Marillier is at liberty to publish her setting of The Lent Lily, and there is no fee to pay; But I do not allow the words to be printed in programmes. They may publish the song in all countries, and I am content with 30 % royalty in case of mechanical reproduction.

“I have been perplexed by receiving a letter lately from a well-known literary man, in which he says that ‘the 1927 edition’ of A Shropshire Lad contains in the 13th stanza of No. XLII the misprint ‘From the all wood that autumn’ instead of all the. It is not in the larger edition of 1927: is there a smaller one of that date? and does it occur there? and, if so, how did it get in?” Letters, ed. Burnett, II:78–79 (partial text only from publication by Cyril Clemens, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 25 June 1928, 1 ½ pages. “Would you come to lunch on Friday?

“At the present moment my feelings towards you are much embittered by the discovery that your last small edition of A Shropshire Lad contains 15 errors, some of them filthy.” Letters, ed. Burnett, II:81 (partial text only, from Richards’s memoir, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 3 April 1929, 2 ½ pages. “I have just dispatched to you by partial post the text and notes of Manilius V.

“The text is nearly 200 lines less than that of the book IV, and my notes are not on a larger scale; but the preface will be longer, and there will be addenda to the four preceding volumes, and two short appendices. Altogether I should think the book would be about the same size as IV.

“If Messrs Maclehose do not remember the type and arrangement, a copy of book III might be sent them as a pattern.

“I enclose notes or points which should be observed.” Letters, ed. Burnett, II:122 (from publication by Cyril Clemens, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 26 November 1929, 1 ½ pages. “I acknowledge receipt of proofs completing the notes of Manilius V. I enclose a modification of my instructions regarding the additional matter which I sent about two months ago. Please forward these to the printers immediately, as they may be taken with a sudden fit of industry and start on the work at once.” Letters, ed. Burnett, II:156 (from publication by Cyril Clemens, not providing the date or locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 19 September 1930. 2 pages. “I agree with you in preferring the heavier weight and the white shade. But you seem to be wrong in saying that in these specimens the 90 lb paper is creamy and the 100 lb paper white.

“I am glad to see that the binders have stuck on the label right end up, and I hope they will repeat their success when the book is issued, for the first copies of books III and IV had it upside down.” Letters, ed. Burnett, II:352 (from publication by Cyril Clemens, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 10 October 1930, one page. “The National Institute for the Blind may reproduce When I was one-and-twenty as they desire.” Letters, ed. Burnett, II:203 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 21 November 1930, one page.” I kept a list of the last lot of corrections, so I can see that they have been duly made. But.mes anwhile I have discovered an omission of my own on p. 165 (enclosed) which I should like to have put right in the way you decide.” Housman adds in an unusually conciliatory and trusting postscript, “I need not see the page again.” Not in Letters, ed. Burnett.

¶ Autograph letter signed, 13 November 1931, 3 pages. “I have no recollects ion whatever of having given my consent to Tauchnitz; but when the Richards Press took them to task they said that they had a letter from me giving consent, and they gave its date; and I suppose they would not be brazen enough to tell an utter lie.

“But I did not give them consent to omit a comma, nor to alter the English word Reveille into Réveille, which is not even French. Moreover it is a wretched selection containing, for instance, six pieces of Sassoon’s; and I will not give my consent to Heinemann.” Letters, ed. Burnett, II:266 (from Richards’s memoir, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 4 April 1934, 1 ½ pages. “1. Mr Tuegan(?) is at liberty to use No. XXXIX of Last Poems instead of No. XLI.

“2. Mr Procter-Gregg is at liberty to publish his setting of No, XL in A Shropshire Lad and to give it as title ‘The Land of Lost Content.’” Letters, ed. Burnett, II:414 (partial text only from publication by Cyril Clemens, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 27 July 1935, 3 pages. “J. & W. Chester Ltd. can have the permission they ask for When I was one-and-twenty, but they should give the publishers’ name correctly, or rather they should omit it, as the publishers are not entitled to give permission.

“Thanks for Gastronomic Italy which is interesting and instructive. The Wines of Italy contains much inappropriate language.

“The continuation of my life beyond May 1933 was a regrettable mistake, and the bright side of the weakening of my health since the end of February is that it encourages me to hope for an earlier termination of the affair. The heart is regarded by the doctors as the chief culprit, but partly it is just old age and partly a nervous disorder. I have been passing a quiet three weeks in the country.” Letters, ed. Burnett, II:486 (from Richards’s typescript, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 20 September 1935, 2 pages. “I came back from France through the tempestuous air of Tuesday. I am, if anything, weaker than ever, though I had a good deal of enjoyment in Dauphiné and Savoy. Three poems, supposed to the humorous, which I contributed anonymously to the Students’ magazine at University College, have recently been reprinted in a private and very limited edition by the English school there. The poems which Laurence recites are mostly juvenile.” Letters, ed. Burnett, II:492–93 (from Richards’s memoir, not locating the original).

¶ Autograph letter signed, 20 January 1936, 2 pages, written in an uncharacteristically unsure hand. “I was 3 weeks in the Nursing Home unable to answer letters. I am now back here and lecturing but with no strength for anything beyond my actual work. I am having your books returned and I thank you for sending them but I cannot bear to look at them; and I should not approve of anything of that sort under any circumstance. I am not a descriptive writer and do not know Shropshire well.”

“The chief trouble was digestive.” Richards explains that “The books he returned were published by Methuen. E. V. Lucas had sent them to me and had asked me to do my best to enlist Housman’s interest and to obtain his approval for a similar volume to be devoted to the country of IA Shropshire Lad.I The actual books so quickly rejected contained the work of the illustrator whom Lucas proposed to employ. … Thereafter, not realizing how ill he had become but being anxious not to worry him, I believe I did not write, So that letter of January 20 was the las I was to receive.” Letters, ed. Burnett, II:517 (from Richards’s memoir, not locating the original).

¶ The Housman-Richards correspondence also includes 6 autograph postcards signed by Housman to Richards, 1919–1936, mostly regarding his classical editions, but two of which concern Mitchell Kennerley’s edition of A Shropshire Lad (Housman initially has the name as Kennedy). In the first, Housman says he “should rather like a copy of his edition, if you can get hold of one for me.” But after hearing further from Richards, he changes his mind: “I am much obliged by your letter of the 11th, which gives me all the information I require. I do not want a copy of Mr Mitchell Kennerley's edition.”

None of these six letters seems to have been previously published; some of them are of considerable merit, particularly the first, to John Lane, essentially challenging him to pirate A Shropshire Lad for the American market.

¶ Autograph letter signed, 13 December 1905, 3 ½ pages, to John Lane, publisher of the first American edition of A Shropshire Lad, regarding the possibility of a new American edition. “It is not correct to that Grant Richards applied to me in consequence of the Archer’s article. He had asked me to let him publish the book some t.mes before, and I had declined, not seeing any reason to quit Kegan Paul. The Archer’s article covered the first edition to be exhausted; and then, as Kegan Paul were not disposed to issue a second, and as Mr Richards renewed his offer, I acceded to it.

“With regard to your proposal, for which I am much obliged, I have given the publication of the book to E. Grant Richards, and I believe there will shortly appear a new edition what I consider a very ugly cover, though I am no judge. I could not well authorize you to bring out an American edition without taking the opinion if my present publisher on the subject, and I do not know if you would wish this to be done, If, however, on second thoughts, you can make up your mind to piracy, it will do me no injury personally, as I have never accepted royalties on this book and should not accept them from you. But I have been told by Americans that they already have an edition by Putnams, though I have never seen it.”

This letter is not published in Letters, ed. Burnett, but Housman alluded to it in a letter to Richards published both by Burnett and in Richards’s own Housman 1897–1936. In the latter, Richards comments, “John Lane evidently and not unnaturally thought that my difficulties left Housman open to offers” (p. 68). Housed in a Scribner’s envelope with an autograph description on the front panel by John Carter.

¶ Autograph letter signed, 27 December 1915, 2 pages, to his sister Clemence, about family origins and recollects ing an early classical translation of his. “I think it was Mr Carter himself who started the notion of making these researches. The object seems to be to determine whether we really are descended from the ancient Holdens or merely from a person who happened to bear that name and was made heir by one of them who wanted to spite his relatives.

“I do remember that at school I once had to translate that passage of Horace, and that father made many changes which I did not think improvements. … the end now comes back to me: Go then, spread sail, while night, while love can save; / Go, and all heaven around thy going be; / Bur carve, not quite forgetful, on my grave / One moan for me.” Not in Letters, ed. Burnett.

¶ Autograph letter signed, 19 September 1927, one page, to a Miss Mosely, answering a question about his first book of verse: “I do not think that A Shropshire Lad has been translated into any foreign language.” Not in Letters, ed. Burnett. Housed in a red silk portfolio gilt, with a card from the New York bookseller Alwin J. Scheuer.

¶ Autograph letter signed, 20 May 1930, 2 pages, to Frederick Charles Owlett, commenting on dialogue he had sent for Housman’s perusal. “Prefatory lines are things which I do not write; but I am obliged to you for sending me your dialogue, which I have read with a good deal of interest. The only criticism I have to make is the one which applies to Landor and other writers of imaginary conversations: that you take sides, and Walpole has not a dog's chance. You think more highly of Chatterton than I do: he was wonderfully free from the vices of his age, — I mean the diction of the 18th century — but I have never found very much positive merit in him.” Not in Letters, ed. Burnett.

¶ Autograph letter signed, 10 November 1933, one page, to a Mr. Roberts. “In reply to your letter of this day’s date, for which I thank you, I should prefer just ‘A. E. Houseman.’” The recipient was likely Denys Kilham Roberts, secretary to the Society of Authors, London. Not in Letters, ed. Burnett.

¶ Autograph letter signed, 29 December 1934, one page, to Frederick Charles Owlett, thanking him “for presenting me with an essay of so much knowledge and enthusiasm.” Not in Letters, ed. Burnett.