THE LATE NORA HOPPER.

Evening Post, Volume LXXI, Issue 142, 16 June 1906, Page 11

THE LATE NORA HOPPER.

Mrs. Chesson ("Kora Hopper"), ono of a small but gifted circle of Keltic imaginative writers, died on 14th April, from heart-failure following on the' btrth of a child some ten days earlier.l For fifteen years or so sho has been a favourite writer of graceful verso jn tho Westminster Gazette r and other papers, and has done exccllpnt work in other departments of literature. She was born at Exeter on 2nd Janu--ary, 1871, tne daughter of Captain Harman Baillie Hopper, of tho Bengal Native Infantry. Her Jather was Irish and her mother Welsh, a combination of parentage which has before now contributed much to literature. Nora was brought up and educated in London, and her tendency to writing was displayed at a very early age. When sho was sovonteen a story of hers was Published in an Irish newspaper. Miss Hopper's first long story, "A Modern Juliet," was published in "Atalanta," and from 1900 her name was met in innumerable magazines and publications as the author of verses and artide3. For she bad the true journalistic instinct, and though poetry was her most treasured medium ol giving her thoughts to the world, no other method was overlooked or evaded. Folklore articlM, short stories, reviews — all were readily undertaken and admirably carried out. Apart from h.cr fugitivo work, Mb. Chesson had produced half a dozen volumes. "Books and Ballads in Prose," "Under Quicken Boughs," "Songs of Morning," "Aquamarines," "Stories from Tennjson," and "Tho Bell and tho Arrow," the last-named her first novel, which Mr. J. Werner Laurie published last year. Somo of her work in manuscript still await 3 publication, and she he-id much moro in contemplation. Mrs. Chesson onco happily described hcrGelf as "a poet of impulse raUior than of study and care: a writer of lyrics rather than laboratories." She was married in 1901 to Wilfrid Hugh Chesson, who is himself a poet and a well-known writer. Recently he has been in failing health, and has been living in Ireland. Owing to* Mr. Chosson's illness and consequent inability to work, an appeal is being mado on bohalf of tho young family. There aro three children, the eldest three years old.