Kim Pelkey
The title of this article, "An Uneasy Cuckoo in the Nest," is
taken from Laurence Housman's obituary in the London Times, which
says of him: "A born radical under a conservative skin (a family
inheritance), clothed in the formidable traditions of the Victorian
era, he proceeded by degrees and at intervals to shed the
clothing.... Whether as idealist or iconoclast, it was hard for him
to be moderate. An uneasy cuckoo in the nest, he nevertheless
regarded himself, as indeed he was, a 'Victorian.'"
At the time of his death at the age of 94, in 1959, Laurence Housman left behind a legacy of over eighty books that spanned a working and creative life of more than fifty years. Although he has been described as "perhaps the most variously accomplished artist that has written poetry since Rossetti and Morris," Housman was overshadowed by his brother, the scholar-poet A. E. Housman, and remains little known today.
While the literary and artistic merits of Housman's work alone warrant attention, the hundreds of items of Laurence Housmaniana in the Adelman Collection at Bryn Mawr College provide rich material for a fascinating look at turn-of-the-century England. As Housman's entry in the Dictionary of National Biography notes: "He lived so long, was friendly with so many of the leaders of thought in the critical decades of his middle life, and was connected with such a diversity of 'progressive' causes that his writings will always remain a valuable reflection of opinion and feeling when the twentieth century banished the nineteenth."
A researcher digging for Housman gold will find items that include or make reference to several "firsts" in Housman's career - his first book of criticism, his first book of poetry, and his first play - as well as material that traces his creative development from art student and critic, to book illustrator and designer, to poet and playwright. Other veins to be tapped chronicle Housman's involvement in the social and political causes of his time, focusing specifically on issues of censorship, pacifism, and women's suffrage.
The breadth and diversity of the Adelman Collection's Housman material, which includes books, letters, manuscripts, original art, and photographs, evoke the artistic, literary, and social vitality and ferment of the late Victorian era, while highlighting the accomplishments of Laurence Housman, an important artist, writer, and activist who has fallen into obscurity.