AE HOUSMAN, A SHROPSHIRE LAD (ILLUSTRATED)

A Shropshire Lad

A.E. Housman

With an afterword by Dr David Butterfield, Editor of The Housman Society Journal

Alfred Edward Housman’s A Shropshire Lad is the wonderful collection of poems that are so evocative of ‘the blue remembered hills’ of his youth. In this half-imaginery ‘land of lost content’ the recurring theme is one of the helplessness of man against an achingly beautiful countryside. It has inspired generations of readers, and has found its way into the canon of English folksong with settings by Butterworth, Ireland and Ralph Vaughan Williams.

Agnes Miller Parker (1895–1980) is associated with the group of artists known as Vorticists, active in London in the 1920s. The main body of her work consists of superb wood engravings for book illustration, as here.

The Collector’s Library restores traditional visual and tactile pleasures to the joy of reading.

Each book is designed to appeal to the book-lover; in every case the type is re-set, illustrations, where appropriate, are selected from sources as close to the period of the book as possible, and the books are printed on high-quality paper, section-sewn and bound in real cloth. Each book has endpapers, a satin ribbon marker, head and tailbands and gilt edges. They represent the marriage of great literature to high aesthetic and craft standards, using the technology of the 21st century to produce something classic and at the same time unmistakeably modern.

Their handy size means that they can be slipped into the pocket, handbag or briefcase, and their robust manufacture makes them ideal travelling companions as well as comfortable bedside reads at very affordable prices.

‘I cannot imagine a more heavenly present; they are so beautifully produced and illustrated.’

Jilly Cooper, novelist

‘It is delicious to see gilt edges again. ... They are far more pocket-sized than any paperback.’

Joanna Trollope, novelist