Laurence Alma-Tadema

Laurence Alma-Tadema (born Laurense Tadema, 1865–1940), was an English poet and novelist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries who worked in many genres.

Life
Eldest daughter of the Dutch painter Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836–1912) and his first wife Marie-Pauline Gressin Dumoulin, she was born in Brussels. Her stepmother, Lady Laura Theresa Alma-Tadema (1852–1909) and sister Anna Alma-Tadema (1867–1943) were also noted artists. Laurence Alma-Tadema lived in "The Fair Haven", Wittersham, Kent, and she involved herself with music and plays with the villagers and their children, going on to construct a building to seat a hundred people, used for musical concerts and plays, which she named "Hall of Happy Hours". She never married and died in a nursing home in London in 1940.

Literary work
Her first novel, Love's Martyr, was published in 1886. In addition to her own collections of stories and poems, which she often published herself, Alma-Tadema wrote two novels, songs and works on drama; she also made translations. The Orlando Project says about Alma-Tadema's writing that the "characteristic tone is one of intense emotion, but in prose and verse she has the gift of compression". She contributed widely to periodicals, notably The Yellow Book, and also edited one herself. Some of Alma-Tadema's plays were successfully produced in Germany.

Political activities
Alma Tadema had a close association with Poland. She was secretary of the "Poland and the Polish Victims Relief Fund" from 1915 to 1939. She was an admirer and long-term associate of Ignacy Jan Paderewski both as far as his music and political activities were concerned, notably on Polish independence. Alma-Tadema maintained a long-correspondence from him from 1915 to the end of her life. Some of her papers are deposited with the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford.

American Tour
Alma-Tadema, who had socialist leanings, travelled to America in 1907–08 to tour the country widely. She gave a series of readings on the "Meaning of Happiness," which proved exceedingly popular. She also spoke on the plight of the divided Poland and asked her audience to express their feelings for this cause.

If No One Ever Marries Me
Alma-Tadema's poem "If No One Ever Marries Me", written in 1897 and published in Realms of Unknown Kings, saw performances as a song in the 21st century by Natalie Merchant on her double album Leave Your Sleep. In 1900 it had been included in the musical score, The daisy chain, cycle of twelve songs of childhood by Liza Lehmann, and in 1922 in the musical score Little girls composed by Louise Sington.

Publications

 * Love's Martyr, Longmans, London, Green, and Co., {1886}, hardcover, 208 pages; New York, D. Appleton (1886)
 * One Way of Love: A Play (1893), 54 pages
 * The Crucifix, A Venetian Phantasy, and Other Tales, London, Osgood, McIlvaine & Co. (1895), 172 pages
 * Songs of womanhood, London: Grant Richards, 1903, hardcover, 117 pages
 * Realms of unknown kings
 * The wings of Icarus: being the life of one Emilia Fletcher, revealed by herself in I. Thirty-five letters, written to Constance Norris between July 18th, 188–, and March 26th of the following year; II. A fragmentary journal; III. A postscript
 * Four plays
 * Maurice Maeterlinck, translation by Laurence Alma-Tadema, Pelleas and Melisanda and the Sightless Two Plays By Maurice Maeterlinck, Walter Scott Ltd., London, hardcover  and  G. Allen and Unwin, London {1914}
 * Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes : Proverbs and Rhyme Games, illustrated by Charles Robinson, forward by Laurence Alma-Tadema, Collins Clear-Type Press, London, c. 1910, hardcover, 208 pages
 * Robert Louis Stevenson, introduction by Laurence Alma-Tadema, illustrations by Kate Elizabeth Olver, A Child's Garden of Verses, London, Collins, hardcover
 * Laurence Alma-Tadema, John Lea, and others, Little bo Peep's Story Book, Childrens Press, London, hardcover
 * Poland, Russia and the war, St. Catherine press (1915)
 * A Gleaner's Sheaf. Verses., London: St. Martin's Press (1927)