Laurence Hope

India's Love Lyrics Laurence Hope

Adela Florence Nicolson (1865-1904) was an English poet who wrote under the pseudonym Laurence Hope. Adela married Colonel Malcolm Hassels Nicolson and it was he who introduced her to the food and customs of India. Her poems often used imagery and symbols from the poets of the North-West Frontier of India and the Sufi poets of Persia. In 1901 she published Garden of Kama, which was published a year later in America under the title India's Love Lyrics. She attempted to pass these off as translations of various poets, but this claim soon fell under suspicion. Her love poems were very popular in the Edwardian era.