Alma-Tadema was born in Brussels in 1865. She was the eldest daughter of the Dutch painterLawrence Alma-Tadema and his first wife Marie-Pauline Gressin-Dumoulin de Boisgirard. Laurence 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. Her stepmother, Lady Laura Theresa Alma-Tadema and sister Anna Alma-Tadema were noted visual artists.
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". 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. 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 albumLeave 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 girlscomposed 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 long-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.
American tour
Alma-Tadema, who had socialist leanings, travelled to America in 1907 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.
