Similarities between JRR Tolkien and AE Housman are not hard to spot. Both were Oxbridge dons. Both were experts in ancient languages. And both were hugely popular writers whose creative work took them far beyond their academic audiences and whose fame has lasted beyond their own lifetimes.
And the similarities do not end there. Housman’s birthplace and childhood home was Fockbury in Worcestershire. Tolkien spent formative years just 11 miles away in the hamlet of Sarehole. After Tolkien’s family moved to the centre of Birmingham, he attended King Edward’s School, where Housman had studied before him.
