Laurence Hope

Born Adela Florence Cory on April 9, 1865, she later became Adela Florence Nicolson and wrote under the pen name Laurence Hope. She was an English poet closely associated with British India, and her writing drew heavily on the settings, moods, and cultural atmosphere she knew there.

She is especially remembered for The Garden of Kama and other poems that made her popular with readers at the end of the 19th century. The poems often explore love, desire, sadness, and loss in a lyrical, musical style that helped her stand out from many of her contemporaries.

Her life was brief—she died on October 4, 1904—but her work continued to attract attention long afterward, both for its emotional intensity and for the literary persona she created as Laurence Hope.