More Poems

Alfred A. Knopf / Barclay’s, New York, 1936; First Edition; tall 8vo, 73 pages; blue cloth boards; gilt titles and decorations; frontispiece portrait plate of the author. Selection of forty-eight previously unpublished poems by eminent classicist and poet Alfred Edward Housman (1859-1936), released in the year of his death by his brother Laurence in accordance with Alfred’s last instructions to destroy all prose manuscripts, but to select and publish anything he deemed worthy from the verse writing. Thus Laurence Housman begins a ten page preface: "This final selection of A.E. Housman’s poems is published with his permission, not by his wish." Notable among the works chosen for rescue are Poem XLII - "A.J.J." a haunting remembrance of Adalbert A. Jackson, brother of Houseman’s great friend Moses Jackson, and poem XLV, which contains the line appropriated by Arthur C. Clarke for the title of his first novel, "Against The Fall Of Night." Housman’s poems have served as inspiration for numerous other authors, and have been set to music by a number of illustrious 20th century composers including Arthur Somervell, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and George Butterworth. Photo plate of the original handwritten manuscript for Poem XV opposite page 25, demonstrating the neatness and unedited nature of the majority of Housman’s verse manuscripts, the poems typically springing fully formed into his consciousness with only the need to write them down. Copyright Barclay’s, 1936. Composed at the Plimpton Press, Norwood Massachusetts, printed and bound by the Haddon Craftsmen, Camden, New Jersey, paper by P.H. Glatfelter Co., Spring Grove, Pennsylvania, typography and design by W.A. Dwiggins. Very good plus. Clean, crisp, bright, corners sharp, no ownership signatures or any other markings of any kind. No dust jacket.