Dooher, Murdoch Joseph (1899-after 1960). American business writer and collector. New York City-born, Dooher moved to California in the 1930s, where he wrote and edited many books on business efficiency and management practices. In addition to writing to Cather, evidently asking for a manuscript, he also wrote to A.E. Housman, asking the poet to copy one of his poems in his own hand, a request Housman refused.

Housman, Alfred Edward (1859-1936) (“A. E.”). British poet and scholar. Born in Worcestershire, England, the eldest son of a solicitor and his wife, Housman won a scholarship in 1877 to St. John’s College, Oxford University, where he studied classics. Although he was a promising scholar, he failed to obtain his degree and took a job at the patent office in London. He continued as an independent scholar, and the brilliance of his work led to his appointment in 1892 as professor of Latin at University College, London, and in 1911 to Trinity College, Cambridge. He published A Shropshire Lad (1896), his most famous collection of poems, at his own expense, but its reputation steadily increased. Cather discovered Housman’s poems soon after they appeared in the U.S., and they influenced much of her early poetry. Shropshire was one of the first destinations on her European trip in 1902, and Housman was one of the people she most wanted to meet. The meeting was awkward and became the subject of speculation and stories by others in later years.