Laurence Housman

Laurence Housman (1915)

Laurence Housman (/ˈhaʊsmən/; 18 July 1865 - 20 February 1959)^[1] was an English playwright, writer and illustrator.

Early life

Laurence Housman was born in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, one of seven children who included the poet A. E. Housman and writer Clemence Housman. In 1871 his mother died, and his father remarried, to a cousin. After education at Bromsgrove School, he went with his sister Clemence to study art at the Lambeth School of Art and the Royal College of Art in London.

Illustrating

He first worked as a book illustrator with London publishers, illustrating such works as George Meredith's Jump to Glory Jane (1892), Jonas Lie's Weird Tales (1892), Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market (1893), Jane Barlow's The End of Elfintown (1894) and his sister's Werewolf (1896)^[2] in an intricate Art Nouveau style. During this period, he also wrote and published several volumes of poetry and a number of hymns and carols.^[3]

Writing

When his eyesight began to fail, he turned more and more to writing. Housman's first literary success came with the novel An Englishwoman's Love-letters (1900), published anonymously. He then turned to drama with Bethlehem (1902) and was to become best known and remembered as a playwright. His other dramatic works include Angels and Ministers^[4] (1921), Little Plays of St. Francis (1922) and Victoria Regina (1934) which was even staged on Broadway. Housman's play, Pains and Penalties, about Queen Caroline, was produced by Edith Craig and the Pioneer Players.^[5]

Some of Housman's plays caused scandals because of depiction of biblical characters and living members of the Royal House on stage, and many of them were only played privately until the subsequent relaxation of theatrical censorship. In 1937 the Lord Chamberlain ruled that no British sovereign may be portrayed on the stage until 100 years after his or her accession. For this reason, Victoria Regina could not be staged until the centenary of Queen Victoria's accession, 20 June 1937. This was a Sunday, so the premiere took place the next day.^[6]

Housman also wrote children's fairy tales such as A Farm in Fairyland (1894) and fantasy stories with Christian undertones for adults, such as All-Fellows (1896), The Cloak of Friendship (1905), and Gods and Their Makers (1897). ^[7]

A prolific writer with around a hundred published works to his name, his output eventually covered all kinds of literature from socialist and pacifist pamphlets to children's stories. He wrote an autobiography, The Unexpected Years (1937), which, despite his record of controversial writing, said little about his homosexuality.^[8] He also edited his brother's posthumous poems.

Activism

Housman held what for the time were controversial political views. He was a committed socialist and pacifist and founded the Men's League for Women's Suffrage with Henry Nevinson and Henry Brailsford in 1907. He was also a member of the British Society for the Study of Sex Psychology and the Order of Chaeronea.^[9]

In 1909, Laurence, with his sister Clemence founded the Suffrage Atelier, an arts and crafts society who worked closely with the Women's Social and Political Union and Women's Freedom League. They encouraged non-professional artists to submit work, and paid them a small percentage of the profits.^[10]

Housmans Bookshop

In 1945 he opened Housmans Bookshop in Shaftesbury Avenue, London, founded in his honour by the Peace Pledge Union, of which he was a sponsor. In 1959, shortly after his death, the shop moved to 5 Caledonian Road, London N1 9DX, where it is still a prime source of literature on pacifism and other radical approaches to living.^[11]

Later life

After World War I, Laurence and his sister Clemence left their Kensington home and moved to the holiday cottage which they had previously rented in the village of Ashley in Hampshire.^[12][13] They lived there until 1924,^[14] when they moved to Street, Somerset, where Laurence lived the last 35 years of his life.^[15]

Bibliography

A list of his works from the Open Library.^[16]

Plays

• Little Plays of St. Francis: a dramatic cycle from the life and legend of St. Francis of Assisi (1900)
• Followers of St. Francis (1900)
• Bethlehem: A Nativity Play (1902)
• Prunella, or, Love in a Dutch garden (1906; with Harley Granville-Barker)
• The Chinese Lantern (1908)
• Lysistrata: A Modern Paraphrase from the Greek of Aristophanes (1911)
• Pains and Penalties (1911)
• A Likely Story (1916)
• The Lord of the Harvest: A Morality in One Act (1916)
• As Good as Gold (1916)
• The Return of Alcestis (1916)
• The Snow Man (1916)
• Bird in Hand (1916)
• Nazareth (1916)
• A Mint o' Money (1920)
• The Death of Orpheus (1921)
• Angels & Ministers: Four Plays of Victorian Shade & Character (1921)
• Possession (1921)
• Brother Sin (1922)
• Sister Gold (1922)
• Brother Sun (1922)
• The House of Bondage (1922)
• Little Plays of St. Francis (1922)
• False Premises (1922)
• Echo de Paris (1923)
• The Death of Socrates: a dramatic scene, founded upon two of Plato's Dialogues, the "Crito" and the "Phaedo" (1925)
• The Comments of Juniper: six plays from the life and legend of St. Francis of Assisi (1926)
• Ways and Means: Five one-act plays of village characters (1928)
• Cornered Poets: A Book of Dramatic Dialogues (1929)
• The New Hangman (1930)
• Palace Plays (1930)
• 20 Selected Little Plays of Saint Francis (1930)
• Ye Fearful Saints! Plays of creed, custom, and credulity (1932)
• The Queen's Progress (1932)
• Victoria and Albert (1933)
• Four Plays of St. Clare (1934)
• Victoria Regina, a dramatic biography (1934)
• Little Plays of Saint Francis, volume III (1935)
• Palace Scenes: more plays of Queen Victoria (1937)
• The Golden Sovereign (1937)
• The Rose and the Thorn (1938)
• The Six o'Clock Call (1938)
• The Bed-chamber Plot (1938)
• The Queen! God bless Her! (1938)
• 'A great relief' (1938)
• Enter Prince (1938)
• Under Fire (1938)
• Gracious Majesty (1941)
• Palestine Plays (1942)
• Happy and Glorious: A Dramatic Biography of Queen Victoria (1943)
• Samuel, the King-maker (1944)
• The Family Honour (1950)
• Old Testament Plays (1950)

Other works

• A Farm in Fairyland (1894)
• The House of Joy (1895)
• All-fellows (1896)
• Green Arras (verse; 1896)
• Arthur Boyd Houghton (collection of art by Arthur Boyd Houghton, 1896)
• Gods and their Makers and other stories (novel and story; (1897)
• Little Saint Michael"' (Story publihed in "The Dome)
• The Field of Clover (1898)
• Spikenard: A Book of Devontional Love-Poems (1898)
• The Little Land: with songs from its four rivers (1899)
• The Story of the Seven Young Goslings (1899)
• Rue (1899)
• A Doorway in Fairyland (fairy story; 1900)
• An Englishwoman's Love-letters (1900)
• A Modern Antaeus (1901)
• Blind Love (1901)
• The Venture (1903)
• Sabrina Warham (1904)
• The Blue Moon (1904)
• The Cloak of Friendship (1905)
• Mendicant Rhymes (1906)
• Stories from the Arabian Nights (1907)
• Selected Poems (1908)
• Articles of Faith in the Freedom of Women (1910)
• National Art Training (1911)
• The New Child's Guide to Knowledge (verse; 1911)
• Stories from the Arabian Nights (1911)
• King John of Jingalo (Fiction; 1912)
• Sex-war and Woman's Suffrage (1912)
• Princess Badoura: a tale from the Arabian nights (1913)
• Great Possessions (1915)
• St. Francis Poverello (1918)
• The Heart of Peace, and other poems (1918)
• The Sheepfold (novel and story; 1918)
• The Wheel (1919)
• Ploughshare and Pruning-hook (1919)
• Wish to Goodness! (1920)
• A Thing to be Explained (fairy story; 1920)
• The Rubáiyat of Omar Khayyám (1922)
• Dethronements (1922)
• Moonshine & Clover (fairy story) (1922)
• All-fellows and the Cloak of Friendship (novel and story; 1923)
• Trimblerigg: A Book Of Revelation (satire; 1924)
• The Open Door (1925)
• Gespräche mit Oscar Wilde (1925)
• A Book of Tales (1925)
• Modern Religious Belief (1925)
• Of Aucassin and Nicolette (1925)
• Odd Pairs: a book of tales (1925)
• Ironical Tales (1926)
• The "Little Plays" handbook (1927)
• Uncle Tom Pudd (1927)
• The Life of H.R.H. the Duke of Flamborough (satire; 1928)
• A Substitute for Capital Punishment (1928)
• The Love Concealed (verse; 1928)
• The Religious Advance Toward Rationalism: Delivered at Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, W.C.1, on September 25, 1929 (1929)
• War Letters of Fallen Englishmen (1930)
• Turn Again Tales (fairy stories; 1930)
• Cotton-wooleena (1930)
• A Clean Sweep: the tale of a cat and a broomstick (1931)
• What-o'clock Tales (fairy stories; 1932)
• The Long Journey (with C. H. K. Marten, 1933)
• Ashes to Ashes (1934)
• The Unexpected Years (autobiography; 1936)
• The Royal Runaway and Jingalo in Revolution (a sequel to King John of Jingalo; 1937)
• The Collected poems of Laurence Housman (verse; 1937)
• A.E.H.: some poems, some letters and a personal memoir by his brother Laurence Housman (1937)
• Hop o'-me-heart (Verse; 1938)
• My Brother, A. E. Housman (1938)
• What Next? Provocative Tales of Faith and Morals (1938)
• What Can We Believe? Letters exchanged between Dick Sheppard and Laurence Housman (1939)
• Autarchy, Internationalism and Common Sense (1940)
• The Preparation of Peace (1941)
• Terrorism by Ordinance (1942)
• Back Words and Fore Words (1945)
• Cynthia (verse; 1947)
• Strange Ends and Discoveries (1948)
• The Kind and the Foolish (1952)
• Edward FitzGerald, preface ^[17]

Footnotes

External links

• Works by Laurence Housman at Project Gutenberg
• Works written by or about Laurence Housman at Wikisource
• UNCG American Publishers' Trade Bindings: Laurence Housman