HOUSMAN, A. E.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

A Shropshire Lad; Last Poems. Signed by the author on the half-titles of both these later printings. Housman was reticent regarding his public fame as a poet and it is difficult to encounter signed copies of A Shropshire Lad in any edition. These copies were signed for the theatre critic for The Stage, Raymond Bowler Marriott.A well-connected literary man, Marriott (1911-1992) once "met Shaw in the street and asked him for an autograph... Somerset Maugham invited him to stay at the Villa Mauresque; Queen Marie of Romania asked him to tea at the Ritz; Baroness Orczy told him how she got the idea for the Scarlet Pimpernel while waiting for a train. When Pirandello came to London, he granted an interview. [Marriott] called on the Nijinskys ('He once danced for me'), Lord Alfred Douglas, GK Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc ('I never got much out of him'), Arthur Machem, and many others... The initials RBM in the Stage became associated with notices that were fair, outspoken but never cruel" (Trewin). Marriott's pencilled ownership inscription is on the front free endpaper of each volume.Though the initial sales in 1896 were slow, A Shropshire Lad's celebration of English rural life and landscapes gradually won a large audience in "a period of war, uneasy peace, and rapid social change" (ODNB). Last Poems was first published in 1922. Grant Richards and his successor firm the Richards Press continued to publish both works for decades.

• Printing: later

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