![]() ![]() By 1911 sales were at an annual average of 13,500 copies, and by its fiftieth anniversary there had been approaching a hundred UK and US editions. Initially he declined royalty payments, so as to keep the price down, and also encouraged small, cheap pocket (and even waistcoat pocket) editions. Its popularity increased thereafter, especially during World War I, when the book accompanied many young men into the trenches but it also benefited from the accessibility that Housman encouraged himself. Sales revived during the Second Boer War (1899–1902), due in part to the prominence of military themes and of dying young. ![]() The book was published the following year, partly at the author's expense, after it had already been rejected by one publisher.Īt first the book sold slowly the initial printing of 500 copies, some 160 of which were sent to the United States, did not clear until 1898. ![]() He had more than a year to think about it, since most of the poems he chose to include in his collection were written in 1895, while he was living at Byron Cottage in Highgate. ![]() A friend of his remembered otherwise, however, and claimed that Housman's choice of title was always the latter. Housman is said originally to have titled his book The Poems of Terence Hearsay, referring to a character there, but changed the title to A Shropshire Lad at the suggestion of a colleague in the British Museum. Byron Cottage in Highgate, where Housman wrote A Shropshire Lad ![]()
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