Laurence Alma-Tadema

Laurence Alma-Tadema (August 1865 – 12 March 1940), born Laurense Tadema, was a British writer of the late 19th and early 20th centuries who worked in many genres. Laurence lived in the cottage "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 mostly divided her time between a flat in Paris and her cottage in Wittersham. She never married, and died in a nursing home in London on 12 March 1940.

Literary work Alma-Tadema's 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". 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.

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 correspondence with him from 1915 to the end of her life. Some of her papers are deposited with the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford. She was appointed CBE in 1918.

American tour Alma-Tadema, who had socialist leanings, travelled to America in 1907 to tour the country widely.