On this date in 1859, Alfred Edward Housman was born in England. He took a “passing degree” from Oxford, and received several university appointments, moving permanently to Trinity College in 1911. His most famous work, a book of poems called A Shropshire Lad, has stayed in print since it was first published in 1896. His second, long-awaited volume of poetry, Last Poems, was published in 1922.
After he died at age 77, his brother put together posthumous collections. Housman’s writing was irreverent: “It is a fearful thing to be The Pope. That cross will not be laid on me, I hope.”
In a letter to his devout Anglican sister Katharine six months before he died, he wrote: “I abandoned Christianity at thirteen but went on believing in God till I was twenty-one, and towards the end of that time I did a good deal of praying for certain persons and for myself. I cannot help being touched that you do it for me, and feeling rather remorseful, because it must be an expenditure of energy, and I cannot believe in its efficacy.” (“The Letters of A. E. Housman,” ed. Henry Maas, 1971) (D. 1936)
