Mirrlees, Hope

Hope Mirrlees (1887-1978), author of novels, poems and translations, is also remembered for her distinguished literary friends, including T. S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf and Lady Ottoline Morrell. Her 1926 novel, Lud-in-the-Mist, has been recognized by science fiction critics as an outstanding example of English fantasy writing. Her work, however, has been overshadowed by the great literary men and women of post-World-War-I Britain with whom she associated.

Helen Hope Mirrlees was born in England in 1887, the daughter of William J. Mirrlees, a wealthy sugar merchant, and Emily Lena Moncrieff. Her elder sister, Margot, married into the landed gentry of Oxfordshire, and her younger brother, William, was a professional soldier who later became a major general. Mirrlees spent part of her childhood in South Africa and received her early education from a French governess. She returned to England to finish her education at St. Leonard's School in St. Andrews, Scotland. Mirrlees abandoned her early theatrical ambitions to study classics at Newnham College of Cambridge University. Jane Harrison, a Greek scholar and lecturer in classical archaeology at the college, became Mirrlees's friend and mentor, and together they travelled to Paris in 1915 to study Russian. Also at Newnham College, Mirrlees met Karin Costelloe, later studying French with her in Paris. Costelloe married Virginia Woolf's brother, Adrian Stephen, in October 1914. Through this association, Mirrlees became acquainted with Woolf.

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