A Shropshire Lad (Penguin Classics: Poetry First Editions) - Softcover

Housman, A.; Schmidt, Michael

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140437185 ISBN 13: 9780140437188

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 1999

Synopsis

First published at the author's expense in 1896, this series of 63 short poems is one of the unarguably immortal works of English verse. Spare and haunting, 'A Shropshire Lad' is set in a 'land of lost content' in which labourers, lovers and soldiers eke out their ephemeral existences in the shadow of 'heartless, witless nature', whose beauty and perfection they can never hope to live up to. Housman encountered little encouragement, and made the barest profit from the publication. However, as the Great War ground on, public indifference slowly gave way to interest, and the poems achieved a tragic resonance that has never diminished.

About this title

Review:

Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award Housman is a high-water mark of British lyric poetry, and this fine production captures perfectly his strong, melodic beat and decisive rhyme, and his wonderful way with words. Samuel West's cultivated Midlands accent may not be specifically Shropshire, but his voice and reading are true to Housman who was not, after all, some rough Shropshire lad himself, but an Oxford don. His 'Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now' and 'To an Athlete Dying Young' are beautifully rendered here. West, you feel, reads poetry as it should be read confidently, with ease and conviction, as if all the world spoke in meter and rhyme. --AudioFile

Published in 1896, Housman's theme of early death became particularly poignant during the Great War. His boy soldiers follow the bugle's call to where the 'dropping dead are thick', and where one suffering 'not an ill for mending' shoots himself. Housman's rural 'land of lost content' with its ancient history, larks and daffodils and its (usually thwarted) young loves of lads and lasses echoes in nostalgic listeners' hearts. Samuel Wests's brogue brings out the Shropshire Lad's touching simplicity, and Housman's haunting rhythms and rhymes. --The Oldie

Housman is a high-water mark of British lyric poetry, and this fine production captures perfectly his strong, melodic beat and decisive rhyme, and his wonderful way with words. Samuel West's cultivated Midlands accent may not be specifically Shropshire, but his voice and reading are true to Housman who was not, after all, some rough Shropshire lad himself but an Oxford don. His Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now and To an Athlete Dying Young are beautifully rendered here. West, you feel, reads poetry as it should be read confidently, with ease and conviction, as if all the world spoke in meter and rhyme. --AudioFile

About the Author:

Alfred Edward Housman (1859-1936), classical scholar and poet, was educated at Bromsgrove and St John's College, Oxford. Whilst at university he formed a passionate attachment to his contemporary Moses Jackson, an important inspiration for his later verse. Intensely private, for unexplained reasons the brilliant Housman failed his Finals and became a clerk in London's Patent Office, before being appointed Professor of Latin in London University and later at Trinity College, Cambridge.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0140437185
• ISBN 13: 9780140437188
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 96