ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

"Thank you for your letter; but A Shropshire Lad is not copyright in The United States and you need no permission from me."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Housman lists Greek translations he has published and where they have been published with page numbers.

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Housman thanks Adelman for his gift of a map of Shropshire "as it was in 1811" There is a penciled notation on the back of this letter, not in AEH's hand, "Housman wrote this letter the day after he served as a pall-bearer at Thomas Hardy's funeral in Westminster Abbey, together with Shaw, Barrie, Kipling and Galsworthy."

1928 Jan 17

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

"I can no more define poetry than a terrier can define a rat; but he knows a rat when he comes across one"

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

"A Shropshire Lad was published while Mr. Wilde was in prison, and when he came out I sent him a copy myself. Robert Ross told me that when he visited his friend in jail he learnt some of the poems by heart and recited them to him..."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Housman discourages Adelman from publishing a limited edition of his Fragment of a Greek Tragedy, saying he would "do everything in my power to thwart." and notes that he suspects the autograph version Adelman has purchased is not genuine and encourages him to compare his handwriting on the letter to that of the other.

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

"The supposed autograph is not mine. It is a copy, not quite accurate, from The Bromsgrovian; and the date is wrong."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

"Thank you for sending me the Fragment, which I have put in the fire, though I don't think it was meant for a forgery. I must have written the Fragment three or four times for the various magazines in which it was printed, but I do not know that any of the MSs survives."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Housman provides Adelman with the address of the Editor of The Bromsgrovian and adds "But I do not think that I ought to take up any attitude towards your attempt to buy a copy"

ALS (photocopy) Trinity College, Cambridge

as above

ALS (photocopy) Trinity College, Cambridge

(as above) Removed from RBR PR4809 H15 H6 1937 Copy 2.

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

"It is exceedingly kind of you to have copied out Francis Thompson's article for me, but I am ashamed that you should have taken so much trouble. What he says of Dowson is just, and so is much that he says incidentally."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

"Within a year or two of my death the authorities at Bromsgrove, if they follow my advice, will put up to auction the remaining copies of the Fragment of a Greek Tragedy, sending notice to America; and then will be your chance."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

"I am very grateful for the photograph you have kindly sent, and which I had entirely forgotten. If I remember right there was a photograph of me in 1896 in an English literary review called The Bookman."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Housman discusses the publishing history of A Shropshire Lad. He notes that it was only rejected by one publisher initially. Housman adds "It is a great exaggeration to talk of a boom in connection with the 2nd edition: such boom as there was began with the war of 1914."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

To the compiler of New English poems, Housman replies: "Naturally I am flattered by the terms of your letter, but my last poems have already been published, and a posthumous poem would be premature. My barrenness is so well known that my absence from your miscellany, to which I wish all success, is not likely to cause remark."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

"For many years I have been refusing permission to print poems from A Shropshire Lad in anthologies, and I am sorry that I cannot make an exception in your case."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

"You are at liberty to print in your anthology one poem from my Last Poems."

AL Trinity College, Cambridge

Housman replies at bottom of letter from the Secretary of the Academic Committee of the Royal Society of Literature of the United Kingdom, which informs him of his nomination to a seat on the committee. Although "very grateful" for the nomination, Housman states that he "must nevertheless beg leave to decline both favours, which, however gratifying and honourable, are
remote from my tastes and pursuits."

Responding to a query about a reader's copy of A Shropshire Lad, Housman replies "If your edition ... is that of 1898 I can correct the errors ... The edition of 1904 I will not touch with a pair of tongs." Warns that he doesn't remember where all errors may be, but if his correspondent sends him the book with a return envelope, he "will see what can be done."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Probably to W.E. Barnes, a classical scholar. Returning Barnes's petition unsigned, Housman writes: "I confess I am attached to the current forms of words, and also I am what you have often heard of but perhaps not often seen, a real conservative, who thinks change an evil in itself."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

"The poem to which I referred is Ralph Hodgson's Song of Honour."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

"I always say that the meaning of a poem is the meaning which it conveys to a reader. My opinion of the universe is of no particular importance, and if it is not well expressed in No. LXII of A Shropshire Lad, that does not much matter."

photocopy of ALS, Trinity College, Cambridge

Declines offer to publish AEH's miscellaneous writings

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Declines an invitation to lecture

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Accepts invitation to dine

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Accepts invitation to dine

TLS (photocopy) Trinity College, Cambridge

another copy tipped in The Testament of Beauty RBR PR 4809 H15 Z995359 1929

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Consents to Brockington's use of excerpts from A Shropshire lad, Last poems, and The Name and Nature of Poetry, in his Mysticism and Poetry

APcS (initials only) Trinity College, Cambridge

Housman laments a printer's mistake: "When will mankind begin to understand that I am more careful than they are, not less?"

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Housman writes "I am flattered by your letter and obliged by your communication, which I think I partly understand."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Note to Chapman, thanking him for his "variously interesting letter."
Letter bears receipt stamp of the Clarendon Press, Oxford

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

To the president of the Mark Twain Society and Twain's nephew, Housman writes "I am obliged by your letter, but I am not a literary critic and cannot write the appreciation for which you wish."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Housman returns a copy of his Last Poems, "signed, with greetings to the
Society"

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Housman writes, "I am naturally flattered that you should entertain the idea of writing a biography of me, but neither you nor anyone else could possibly write one, and I certainly would give no assistance."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Housman declines to inscribe a copy of The Name and Nature of Poetry because "it was a piece of task work and I am not that proud of it."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Housman declines to make a contribution to a Mark Twain centennial celebration. "However, I hope and expect that you will receive no dearth of worthy matter."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Housman graciously explains that he must decline the Society's offer of its Silver Medal "as, in the pursuance of an early resolve, I have in the course of my life already declined a considerable number of honours."

(folder also contains an empty envelope dated? Feb 1932)

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Housman thanks Cockerell for a copy of Bridge's handwriting book.

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Housman writes that he is usually in to receive guests between 6 and 7 p.m. and that he has recently made a motor tour of Burgundy and other parts of France.

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Housman asks Cockerell the proper form of address for the Committee of the Royal Literary Fund.

1928 Jan 17

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

"I make no objection to the quotation of my poem" in James Agate's Lines of communication, published by Constable, "if you will have the enclosed corrections made."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Housman critiques Davidson's poetry as requested. "I will only say that I thought Ingratitude the best of them, ... and that the verb 'sense' is not fit for poetry nor even for literature, and should be left to Americans and journalists."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Thanks Dooher for his letter, but states "I wish that writers would not dedicate books to me nor describe me in public as the greatest of living poets, which you cannot possibly know to be true. I do not copy out poems for anyone, so you must try to get what poor satisfaction you can out of my autograph."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

"I thank you for letting me see the letter which I return. If you receive many like it, you should be a happy man."

ALS London

Thanks his correspondent for sending her friend's poems. "Some of them have a mixture of grace and simplicity which I admire very much."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

"I am very much obliged by your letter; but ... unless I change my mind, A Shropshire Lad and Last Poems will not be published in one volume during my lifetime.

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Housman approves the wording for the publishing information of the special edition.

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Housman has returned proofs with corrections.

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Housman returns the proofs of Last Poems with corrections and deals with truncation due to typesetting issues.

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

"I have received the three copies of each of my books in your edition, and I thank you for this generous gift. I do not say anything about the beauty of the form, because I know that it is more beautiful than I know, and do not want to expose my ignorance."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

"I think myself that A Shropshire Lad is better on the whole than Last Poems, but Mrs. Wharton and Mr. Masefield are of the contrary opinion. Your two poems are pleasing, especially the first."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Thanks Flaccus for sending his Avalanche of April "which I have read with admiration for its freshness and vividness."

ALS London

Thanks Fleet for 2 volumes he has sent to Housman

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

"Thanks for your card; but I am told that if I show myself at the Queens' Society they will worry me to read them a paper myself."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

(gift of Mrs. Angelo C. Lanza)

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

"If you will accept my signature without a quotation, here it is."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Housman accepts a dinner invitation and discusses his poem Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries and the anthologies in which it appeared.

Folder also contains bookseller's note (Henry Southeran)

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Housman thanks Gaselee for "the return of the notes on Plaut. Capt., which are now in my hands again."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Thanks Goldring for sending his book on Flecker, "which is interesting as a record and contains, if I may say so, discriminating criticism."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Housman replies on the back of Gollancz's letter informing H. that the British Academy proposes to nominate him as Fellow: "I beg that I may not be nominated for election as a Fellow. The honour is one which I should not find congenial nor feel to be appropriate."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

"Pyrenen is Milton's reprehensible way of spelling Pirenen, the fountain at Corinth ... which some of the poets ... confused with Hippocrene on Helicon ... 'Mr. Chaucer was a great man,' says Artemus Ward, 'but he could not spell.'"

ALS Bromsgrove

Apologizes for being unable to pay a visit due to recent ill health

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Answers his correspondent's queries about his publication history. "The only books which I published between [A Shropshire Lad and Last Poems] are editions of Latin classics, purely pedantic ... though two ... have polemical prefaces which amuse some readers who are not scholars."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

To the editor of The classical quarterly, Housman sends corrections to his paper on Lucan VII 460-465

AL Trinity College, Cambridge

Housman's reply drafted on the back of Harrison's query regarding "whether the Greeks thought the akromychal rising of a star is the brightest." Housman writes that "if they did they were of course quite wrong."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

"There is an Essay on English Metrical Law by Coventry Patmore ... which deals with the sort of thing you ask about. Thank you for sending me your poems, which seem to me better than many printed in magazines."

ALS Bromsgrove

Regrets he cannot visit Hollond's friend Mrs. Gray due to a recent illness

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Housman thanks Jamin for his translations of his poems into French, but says he is not proficient enough in the language to judge them and will consult with others.

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

"I have now been able to submit your translations ... to the judgment of one who is thoroughly versed in the French language ... His opinion is that ... they are too pedestrian and prosaic to give a true idea of the original."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

"One of your four guesses is right: I do not say which, because if I allowed the truth to be known, critics would start up and say that they had known it all along." Folder also contains her penciled ALS to Master of Trinity College, returning it to Cambridge for archiving (written on back of sheet dated 1966)

ALS, Woodridings, Pinner

Thanks Lane for sending him 2 copies of the American edition of A Shropshire lad. "I am no judge of book-production, but they seem to me quite nice."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

"Your letter comes too late; but I hope the ink I use will last a few centuries. Quotations I do not write for anyone, even if they have been christened Alfred Housman."

ALS London

In his letter to an American collector, Housman states that the "second edition of A Shropshire Lad contains nothing new except a few misprints." He also thanks Lemperly for his letter and bookplate and adds "I think yours is the only letter containing no nonsense that I have ever received from a stranger."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Housman declines a publication proposal "as I have no proper appreciation of typography and format, and the merits of the volume would be wasted on me."

ALS, Pinner

Thanks Mackail for a copy of Mackail's edition of a volume of Greek poetry. "You seem to admit elegiacs from almost anyone except the three regular practitioners. What they produce is ... sometimes poetry, which is more than I could say of Horace's sapless political odes or the talk-talk
of Boethius."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Housman declines a request for poems written in his own hand.

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Housman thanks Martin for writing to him on his birthday and encloses a photograph in response to Martin's request. "I could not say that I have a favorite among my poems. Thomas Hardy's was no. XXVII in A Shropshire Lad, and I think it may be the best, though it is not the most perfect."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

In response to questions regarding A Shropshire Lad and the fate of Housman's original manuscripts, AEH writes, "I gave the manuscript of A Shropshire Lad to the library of this college, and that of Last Poems to the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. I was not born in Shropshire at all, but near the town of Bromsgrove in Worcestershire. The Shropshire hills were our western horizon, and hence my sentiment for the country, I suppose."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Housman thanks Martin for his Christmas gift and states that he never signs his name in full except for documents on which he must. "You are an engaging madman, and write more agreeably than many sane persons; but if I write anything of an autobiographical nature, as I have sometimes idly thought of doing, I shall send it to the British Museum to be kept under lock and key for 50 years."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Housman advises Martin where he may be able to obtain published copies of his parody Fragment of a Greek Tragedy.

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Housman discusses the topography of Shropshire, admitting that "I do not know the country well, except in parts, and some of my topographical details [in A Shropshire Lad] are wrong and imaginary."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Housman scolds, "You ought to have known better than to send me the copy of A Shropshire Lad. American publishers have a perfect right to issue unauthorized copies, but for me to sign them would be an indignity... I am also deaf to fantastic requests that I should write my name in full or add special stuff for you. One thing I am prepared to do, which might gratify your depraved mind: if you like to send me New Year's Eve I can make and initial a correction which I was too late to make before it was printed."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Housman returns the copy of the poem New Year's Eve with his corrections and provides further details of the locations which had inspired lines in A Shropshire Lad.

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Housman responds to further questions about A Shropshire Lad and his preface to Manilius. Housman notes more revealingly, "Certainly I have never regretted the publication of my poems. The reputation which they brought me, though it gives me no lively pleasure, is something like a mattress interposed between me and the hard ground."

ALS

(in pencil and from a nursing home) Housman writes, "I hope that if you can restrain your indecent ardour for a little I shall be properly dead and your proposed work will not be by its nature unbecoming... Do not send me your manuscript. Worse than the practice of writing books about living men is the conduct of living men in supervising such books"

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

"If I were well I could make a long reply to your kind but irrelevant letter of the 2nd, but I am so ill that I am not fit to discharge the functions of my office or of ordinary life, and my doctor is trying hard to send me back into a nursing home."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Thanks Martin for her letter

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Housman places an order, from Elkin Mathews catalogue, for Aytoun's Firmilian

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Thanks Meynell for books he has sent

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Thanks Meynell for books he has sent. Adds that he is sorry that Meynell is not well.

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Gives Monro permission to include Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries in an anthology

ALS, London

Housman is "pleased to serve as a reference." "I shall hardly recognize the College without you: we entered it together, and may be said to have rocked one another's cradles." With letter of recommendation signed "A.E. Housman, Professor of Latin."

ALS, London

Letter of recommendation states that K. Morton is "fully competent to give elementary instruction in Latin." Written on University College, London, stationery

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

To the American critic and editor: "I am obliged by your letter, but I am not disposed to supply such information as you invite."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Accepts luncheon invitation

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Tells Owlett he would be pleased to sign a copy of A Shropshire Lad

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Housman thanks Parry, a professor of Greek at Harvard, for sending his paper on metaphor. "I agree with what you say about the diction of Homer and the 18th century, only I do not admire it so much as you do." Folder also contains a 1968 letter from Adam Parry at Yale describing and enclosing Housman's letter for an auction.

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Declines Partington's publication proposal. "Typography leaves me cold and limited editions are not to my taste. Nor indeed have I the material ... I certainly never contributed anything to the Pall Mall Magazine or the Oxford Magazine."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Writes to say he must decline a dinner invitation

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

"I have always foreseen that trouble of this sort might arise from the inclusion of poems from A Shropshire Lad in American anthologies ... But the anthologists ought to have foreseen it too, and I should not be asked to annul the natural consequences of their not forseeing it."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

To his colleague at University College, Housman writes "If you prefer Aeschylus to Manilius you are no true scholar; you must be deeply tainted with literature ... The Bible is full of types, and perhaps St. Paul ... prefigures Don Quixote. The resemblances you mention had not struck me, but they will bear thinking on."

AL Trinity College, Cambridge

reply to Pollet's list of questions. Folder also contains Pollet's questionnaire and letter with reference to Grant Richards

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

In this and the following letter Housman discusses various critical aspects of classical literature with Postgate, a professor of Latin at Liverpool

12 ALsS Trinity College, Cambridge

Housman thanks Grant Richards's wife for gifts, inquires after her husband's health, accepts invitations to visit.

7 ALsS Trinity College, Cambridge

Correspondence in this and following two folders primarily concerns Richard's publication of AEH's editing of the 5 volumes of Manilius's Astronomicon 1903-30

1911 Oct 5 to
1911 Dec 29

14 ALsS Trinity College, Cambridge

All letters to 1926 Oct 21 concern Richard's financial difficulties and Housman's refusal to lend further.

8 ALsS, 2 photocopies of ALsS Trinity College, Cambridge

to a variety of publishers regarding publication of his work. Folder also contains 3-page carbon typed publishing agreement between AEH and Grant Richards Ltd. 1922 Sep 14

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Housman writes that he does not know where his correspondent might purchase a first-edition copy of A Shropshire lad

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

"I can only imperfectly decipher your amiable letter, but if you are asking me to send you an autograph copy of a poem of mine I must reply that I have left off doing this for many years."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Housman invites Roberts, a colleague at Cambridge, to dine with him.

APcS Trinity College, Cambridge

In the postcard, written 8 days before his death, Housman writes: "I trust that I responded to your family invitation. I still hope to be there, though I am not so sanguine as I should like to be."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Housman declines to copy out verses for Rubin, but has sent a "reproduction of a recent drawing of me."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Housman declines to send in a contribution to Rubin's magazine. "But a contribution from me is something that many magazines have asked, and none, within human memory, obtained. I do not remember that any of them suffered in consequence, and I do not suppose that yours will either."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Housman critiques a poem that Rubin has sent him.

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

"I am sorry to have to say that I possess no ex libris plate; and indeed I am not a person of culture, and treat my books badly."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Housman grants permission to set one of his poems to music

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Housman agrees to sign books for her if she sends them "in a way which will make it easy ... to return them."

ALsS Trinity College, Cambridge

Thanks Secker for a book he has sent, but refuses to autograph copies of a lecture, "and also of a more recent one which you may have heard of [The Name and Nature of Poetry], because I do not think well enough of them."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Gives Shafer permission to print selected poems from Last poems but "on the condition that you do not print more than five poems from A Shropshire Lad."

ALS London

To his colleague and former pupil, Housman sends thanks for a book of verses.

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Housman discusses mutual acquaintances from Bromsgrove School and mentions finishing an edition of Manilius.

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Encloses an application for membership in the Society of Authors.

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Housman refuses to grant the British Broadcasting Company permission to broadcast readings from his poems.

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Agrees to a time to sit for his photographic portrait by Spicer-Simson

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Housman says he refuses permission to publish his poems in anthologies, however, "they are not copyright in America, so that I have no power over them and no right to object if they are printed there."(Gift of Mark Samuels Lasner)

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Wishes Squire well on his "enterprise" (The London Mercury) but declines to submit poems for publication therein

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Regarding Stevens's Twelve poems, Housman writes: "Many people now send me their verse, and I have had practice in making polite and empty acknowledgements; but yours really have some stuff in them." (See 4: 30)

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

"If you will be good enough to send the book here I shall be pleased to sign it."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

"I return the book with my signature added, and with my compliments on its elegance."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Gives Taylor permission to publish 3 poems from A Shropshire Lad

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge (photocopy)

gift of Friends of the Library, shelved at PR 4809 H15 A68 1922 copy 4

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Gives Walters permission to include Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries in an anthology

Photocopy of ALS, Trinity College, Cambridge

Regarding Warren's lecture on Virgil and his candidacy for chair of the Greek department.

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Tells Wheelock "I am obliged by your kind letter, but it is very unlikely that I shall ever publish another book."

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Responds to a query: "The poem entitled The First of May is no. XXXIV in Last Poems. It was published in The Cambridge Review some years before.

9 ALsS Trinity College, Cambridge

In the seventeen letters in this folder and the next, Housman replies to the collector's questions on A Shropshire Lad ("Any attempt to dramatize [it] will be prosecuted with the utmost rigour of the law") and Last Poems, refuses requests for signatures and speaking engagements, thanks Wilson for various gifts, and discusses matters of health.

ALS, Woodridings

To an old family friend, Housman writes: "I was in residence at Cambridge during the May term, though with no definite work to do. I shall go there permanently at the end of September." He also mentions seeing his brother Laurence "read to an admiring audience his censored play about
Queen Caroline."

ALS,

In French and signed "Alfred Edouard Maisonhomme" (folder contains translation)

ALS, Oxford

also contains a typed copy and explanation of the "cold" poem in this letter

ALS, Woodridings

Though he is reluctant to refuse her request, Housman declines to sign Woods's copy of A Shropshire Lad.

Folder also contains 2 pages from Bibliographic Society of America on AEH's writings in Latin.

ALS Trinity College, Cambridge

Housman proposes a Latin inscription, probably for a tombstone: "BREVEM LVCEM EXTINCTAM EXCIPIAT FOVEATQVE AETERNA."

ALS, Pinna

Housman responds to queries about A Shropshire Lad, Last Poems, the meaning of his poems ("The real meaning ... is what it means to the reader"), and the Professorship of Latin founded in honor of B.H. Kennedy. He also responds to requests for his signature and for permission to reprint verses in anthologies. In responding to an invitation to lecture, Housman declines but answers biographical questions and states that a second edition of his Juvenal is forthcoming (Folder also contains typed carbon copy of the ALS from Cambridge)

copy of typewritten letter