This is the first complete edition of A. E. Housman's poetry, unprecedented in the extent to which it reveals the shaping processes of his poetic thought. The text of the poems published after his death has been corrected from the manuscripts, with all variant readings recorded, and a substantial body of light verse and juvenilia is printed or collected for the first time. The extensive commentary traces the remarkable range of Housman's echoes and allusions--Biblical, Classical, and contemporary--which have never before been explored in such detail, as well as providing information on persons, places, and historical context, the dating of poems, and Housman's linguistic usage.