A.E. Housman (1859-1936), Poet and classical scholar

Alfred Edward ('A.E') Housman

Sitter in 4 portraits
As Professor of Latin at University College, London, Housman combined teaching with academic research and writing. He produced learned papers as well as editions of Ovid (1894) and Juvenal(1905). It was during this period that he produced his best known work: the cycle of poems, A Shropshire Lad (1896). Though not an instant success, the volume gradually won a large audience. His celebration of landscapes and a rural life distinctively and traditionally English made Housman one of the most familiar and highly regarded poets of his time. In 1911 he became Chair of Latin at Cambridge where he spent the next twenty-five years lecturing on textual criticism and pursuing his academic studies.