OUSMAN’S, which had attracted only steady sales after its first publication in 1896, enjoyed a surge in popularity during the First World War thanks to the patriotic, or nostalgic, tenor of many of its 63 poems. Several were published in in 1916 in, issued to aid the morale of combatants fighting for their country on the European mainland, and this, in turn, boosted sales of the full text. Housman told his publisher that he longed to hear news that his book had saved the life of a soldier by diverting a bullet from his heart, hitherto
