Laurence Hope

LH , a writer of exotic, Orientalist love lyrics, published three volumes of immensely successful poetry in the early twentieth century. They remained popular for a number of years after her death. Favourites among her lyrics, like Kashmiri Song and Less than the Dust Beneath Thy Chariot Wheels, had their lives prolonged in musical settings which were sung both in drawing-rooms and in the repertoire of famous singers. Response to her as a poet, however, has often been overshadowed by romanticized readings of her biography.