There is, as Richard Graves points out, no general biography of Housman. The books about him by Laurence Housman, Grant Richards and Percy Withers are valuable, because these men knew Housman and could describe him: but they are not biographies. George Watson's A.E. Housman: A Divided Life is more like one, but it is not quite one; of Norman Marlow and Maude Hawkins I say nothing. The most satisfying book about Housman is A.S.F. Gow's Housman: A Sketch, but as Mr Graves says, its aims are limited, since it is mainly concerned with Housman's scholarship.

LRB 22 November 1979 | PDF Download