Violet Nicolson (1865 – 1904) was born Adela Florence Cory in Gloucestershire, England. Her father was a Colonel in the British army, stationed in Lahore, India (now Pakistan, Punjab province). At age 16 Cory joined her father and two sisters in India, and at age 23 married Colonel Malcolm Nicolson of the British Indian Army. Over the following years she travelled with him throughout the country, learning to love its native customs and food, and sharing an adventurous and often dangerous lifestyle with her husband. By this time she was called Violet by her friends and family.
In 1900 she began to publish her poetry under the name Laurence Hope, and in 1901 published a book of poems titled The Garden of Kama. During the following three or four years she published other works, receiving significant critical and popular attention among British readers. Even though she continued to use the male pseudonym Laurence Hope, and even suggested that the poems were translations of ancient Indian lyric poems, it was widely understood that these highly romantic and exotic works were by Violet Nicolson.
Violet died in 1904, only two months after her husband had died unexpectedly during a medical procedure. She is buried at Saint Mary’s Cemetery in Chennai (formerly known as Madras), India.
