Laurence Hope
Laurence Hope was the pen name of Adela Florence Cory Nicolson, an English poet born on April 9, 1865, in Gloucestershire. She is best known for her intense love poems, which were heavily influenced by her experiences in India. Hope spent her early years in India, where her father served in the military, and she later returned there after her marriage to Colonel Malcolm H. Nicolson. Her poetry often reflects the passion and adventure of her life in the Indian subcontinent and gained notable recognition with the publication of "The Garden of Káma" in 1901, which was successful and had some poems set to music shortly thereafter.
After her husband's death in 1904, Hope faced significant personal turmoil, leading to her tragic suicide that same year. Her poignant farewell note has since been included in posthumous collections of her work. Despite her early death, Hope's poetry has continued to resonate, with several collections released after her passing, showcasing her literary contributions to the themes of love and longing. Some of her works were republished in the early 21st century, highlighting a renewed interest in her unique voice within the literary canon.
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Laurence Hope
Poet
- Born: April 9, 1865
- Birthplace: Gloucestershire, England
- Died: October 4, 1904
- Place of death: India
Biography
Because of the intensity and passion of her love poems, Adela Florence Cory Nicolson deemed it more appropriate to publish them under the male pseudonym Laurence Hope. She was born to Arthur and Fanny Elizabeth Griffin Cory on April 9, 1865, in Gloucestershire, England, the middle daughter of three. She remained in England for her education when her father, an officer in the Bengal army, returned with her mother to India. Eventually she joined her family in Lahore and they lived in India until 1881. After a brief return to England, they resettled in Karachi. (Both Lahore and Karachi are in present-day Pakistan.)
Hope and her sisters helped their father edit the Sind Gazette after his retirement from the military. The youngest sister of the three, Annie Sophie, became a novelist under the pseudonym Victoria Cross. In 1889, Hope married Colonel Malcolm H. Nicolson, a man considerably older than she and much given to dangerous adventures; reportedly she was depressed at being left alone by him so often. Nicolson was finally promoted to general, and the couple moved to the Mhow district of India, where they lived for five years. They had one child, Malcolm Josceline Nicolson.
Hope had begun writing poetry as a teenager, but published no collections until several years after her marriage, her greatest influence being the passion and danger of India. In 1901, The Garden of Káma, and Other Love Lyrics from India was published; it was a considerable success, and some of its poems were set to music in 1902 by Amy Woodforde-Finden. The Nicolsons moved to Morocco, and Hope wrote many of the poems for her second collection, Stars of the Desert (1903), while living there. It was discovered soon afterwards that “Laurence Hope” was a woman—the discovery possibly being a publishing ploy to stimulate even further sales. Hope herself was nicknamed “Violet” by friends.
The Nicolsons returned in 1904 to the east coast of India near Madras. However, General Nicolson died in August of that year during a minor surgery. A few weeks later, Hope killed herself by swallowing mercury perchloride, dying on October 4, 1904. She left a suicide note, “Dedication to Malcolm Nicolson”; the coroner’s verdict was that her suicide occurred during temporary insanity. Her suicide note became the preface to a posthumously published third collection of poems.
Collected editions of Hope’s work came out in 1907, 1922, and 1929, with a complete edition appearing in 1937; this last collection was reprinted in 1943 and 1968. Some of her earlier collections were republished in 2004 and 2005.