Alfred Edward Housman (1859–1936) was a classical scholar and distinguished poet. Although Housman did not produce a large body of work, his polished, simple style has influenced a great many other poets.

Housman was born in Worcestershire, near the Shropshire countryside which often appears in his poetry. He attended Oxford University, and although a brilliant student, he failed his final examination because of personal problems. Housman then went to work as a clerk in the Patent Office, where he spent ten years. During this time, he spent evenings at the British Museum reading room studying Latin texts. When he wrote articles about his studies and sent them to scholarly journals, fellow scholars eventually took notice of his work, and in 1892 he was appointed professor of Latin at University College, London. Housman's major scholarly work was an annotated edition of the writings of Manilius. His volumes of poetry are A Shropshire Lad, which appeared in 1896, and Last Poems, which appeared nearly twenty-five years later. After Housman passed away, his brother published another volume called More Poems.