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LAURENCE HOUSMAN : "A CLUB MEMORY" - AN ORIGINAL HANDWRITTEN MANUSCRIPT ANTI-WAR POETIC RANT BY WELL KNOWN CONTROVERSIAL AUTHOR, ILLUSTRATOR, SOCIALIST, CHAMPION OF WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE, PACIFIST AND BOOKSELLER

4to - over 9¾" - 12" tall. On offer - "A CLUB DINNER MEMORY" A Poem by Laurence Housman March 6, 1916. Extraordinary rare signed manuscript with photograph; a most intriguing manuscript bound in marbled boards with handmade label on front. 8 x 10.5 inches. It begins with pasted down photo of Laurence Housman and others at a table at the club dinner [Research suggests that his brother is seated to his right]. Two pages of an original handwritten poem in Housman's hand on lined paper follow. The poem relates the joys of the dinner but is primarily a rant against the War, the author having come fresh off a ship, "Relaxed from the weight. all horror and hate,/of Europe's bloody necropholists,/ I tucked in my knees, quite snugly at ease,/ With dramatists, painters, and novelists.... The crowd at said dinner is diverse, many nationalities and races, and Housman asks, Why cannot there some great evangelist come/ And knock sense in the heads of humanity?/ It's the Head, not the Heart, that still keeps us apart.... Poem ends: That's your real Tug of War. If you missed it before,/ Now line up, lend a hand, and put rope in it!/ There's Peace knocking sure at America's door,/ If she'll only have courage to open it. Signed at bottom by Housman. One of a kind manuscript. BIO NOTES: "Laurence Housman (18 July 1865 - 20 February 1959) was an English playwright. The younger brother of the poet A. E. Housman, Laurence Housman was born in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire. After education at local schools, he went with his sister Clemence to study art at the Lambert School of Art and the Royal College of Art in London. He first worked as a book illustrator with London publishers, illustrating such works as Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market (1893) and Jane Barlow's The End of Elfintown (1894) in an intricate Art Nouveau style. But he also wrote and published several volumes of poetry in the 1890s, and when his eyesight began to fail, he turned more and more to writing. He lived his last 35 years with his sister in Street, Somerset. Housman's first 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 (1921), Little Plays of St. Francis (1922) and Victoria Regina (1934) which was even staged on Broadway. 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. 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. He also edited his brother's posthumous poems. 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. 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." -wikipedia. VG+. Manuscript. Book Condition: Good+. Binding: Decorative Cloth

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