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HOUSMAN (A.E.) Autograph drafts of two poems, 'Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries' and 'Oh Were He and I Together', [around September 1917] image 1
HOUSMAN (A.E.) Autograph drafts of two poems, 'Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries' and 'Oh Were He and I Together', [around September 1917] image 2
Lot 273

HOUSMAN (A.E.)
Autograph drafts of two poems, 'Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries' and 'Oh Were He and I Together', [around September 1917]

24 June 2015, 11:00 BST
London, Knightsbridge

Sold for £6,875 inc. premium

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HOUSMAN (A.E.)

Autograph drafts of two poems, 'Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries' and 'Oh Were He and I Together', the first with the original title "Epitaph on a mercenary army", comprising eight lines, partly deleted and revised, beginning: "These, in the day when heaven was falling...", and ending "...and saved the sum of things for pay"; the second comprising twelve lines beginning "Oh were he and I together...", and ending "...content for either slain", both written in pencil, with numerous deletions and revisions, the second subsequently rubbed-out and not in all places readily decipherable, 2 pages, numbered "93" at the top, torn from a notebook, tear and glue stains where formerly mounted by Laurence Housman, in a modern dark blue full-morocco leather folding box, 8vo, [around September 1917]

Footnotes

'EPITAPH ON AN ARMY OF MERCENARIES' AND 'OH WERE HE AND I TOGETHER': TWO RARE SURVIVING DRAFTS BY HOUSMAN, both poems inspired by the carnage of the First World War, and by the poet who was taken to the heart of the generation that fought and waited at home during that war; his 'Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries' having fair claim to be considered among the war's great poems, and 'Oh Were He and I together' among his most controversial.

These are the only known surviving drafts for these two poems. They are written on either side of a leaf which was once pages 92-93 in one of Housman's working notebooks, designated by his brother Laurence and by Tom Burns Haber as 'Notebook C' (The Manuscript Poems of A.E. Housman, 1955, pp.24-26). Laurence Housman records the draft in his analysis of the contents of his brother's notebooks (A.E.H.: Some Poems, Some Letters and a Personal Memoir, 1937, p.269). Until the re-emergence of this manuscript it had been assumed lost.

Additional information

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