This Watersgreen House Classics Edition contains the complete volumes of A.E. Housman's A Shropshire Lad and Last Poems together with an introduction by Keith Hale that ties the poems to their historical root: Housman's love for Moses Jackson, the friend with whom Housman shared rooms for one year while studying at Oxford. Though Housman was deeply in love with Jackson, it is doubtful the love was consummated. After Oxford, Housman and Jackson also shared lodgings in London together with Jackson's younger brother Adalbert. It was during this period that Housman and Moses had a falling out, likely due to Housman's unrelenting passion for his friend. Although Moses remained Housman's acquaintance for the rest of his life and Housman never stopped loving him, Moses never gave Housman another opportunity to be close to him. Years later, when Moses was dying in Canada, Housman rushed his volume Last Poems into print so that Moses would have it before passing. Surely, while reading it, Moses recognized himself as the object of every poem of longing and heartbreak.
.......... Watersgreen House is an independent international book publisher with editorial staff in the UK and USA. One of our aims at Watersgreen House is to showcase same-sex affection in works by important gay and bisexual authors in ways which were not possible at the time the books were originally published. We also publish nonfiction, including textbooks, as well as contemporary fiction that is literary, unusual, and provocative. watersgreen.wixsite.com/watersgreenhouse
