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02 December 2016

In the Realm of Useless Footnotes


On 10 October 1929 C. S. Lewis wrote in a letter to his brother:

"I also glanced through A. E. Houseman's 'Shropshire Lad' [footnote] for the hundredth time. What a terrible little book it is -- perfect and deadly, the beauty of the gorgon."

The footnote in his published letters reads: “A. E. Houseman, ‘A Shropshire Lad’ (1896).”

Oh, that A.E. Houseman’s ‘A Shropshire Lad.’

But isn’t Lewis’s characterization of the book brilliant? 'Perfect and deadly, the beauty of the gorgon.'

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