A Shropshire Lad

By: A. E. Housman

Narrated by: Samuel West

Length: 1 hr and 3 mins

Publisher's Summary

Naxos AudioBooks continues its popular The Great Poets series with A Shropshire Lad by A. E. Housman. Published at the author’s own expense in 1896, after rejection from publishers, the collection contains a cycle of 63 poems. Despite exploring themes of lost love, obsession, pessimism, and death, the poems touched English readers and the book became a best seller during the Second Boer War and World War I. The collection, set in a half-imagined pastoral Shropshire, includes the well-known poems "When I Was One-and-Twenty", "To an Athlete Dying Young", and "Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now".

Download the accompanying reference guide.

Public Domain (P)2011 Naxos AudioBooks

Enjoyable way to pass an hour

I enjoy the poetry of A E Housman who is to Shropshire what Thomas Hardy is to Wessex. Here are 63 poems that Housman self-published in 1896 when in his late thirties. There is melancholy that is poignant but also some jolly poems. It's a pleasant way to spend an hour. Included is one of the nation's favourites: Loveliest of Trees, but there is so much more

Gutted this will be taken off

I’m gutted this will be taken off Audible shortly, I genuinely love this collection of poems, as a younger listener, I’m drawn into A E Housman and his romantic vision of Shropshire (made all the more poignant when you know he never visited the place), and the touching way the narrator brings these poems to melancholy life.
It’s just that there’s not much of Housman on Audible, and what else is here isn’t as well narrated as this.
This is a really lovely collection to listen to, and I’ll be sad to see the back of it :(