Alfred Edward Housman was born in 1859 and died in 1936. His most famouse work is A Shropshire Lad, a collection of poems that bring to life the griefs and hopes and disappointments of life in the English countryside. He was also a classical scholar and teacher.

The poems in the ‘Shropshire Lad collection are distinctive and evocative, written with an apparant simplicity that is deceptive. The imagery that Housman uses is wonderfully redolant of the English countryside.

Housman’s work as a classical scholar was outstanding, and his translations and commentaries on Latin writers like Juvenal and Lucan are still admired around the world. He taught Latin at University College London and Cambridge University.