Rosamund Stanhope

Rosamund Stanhope (1919–2005) was a British poet and teacher known for her exuberant use of esoteric and unusual words.

Born 4 March 1919 in Northampton, the daughter of a Latvian (German by adoption) leather merchant who changed his name after her birth from Steinberg to Stanhope, Rosamund Stanhope grew up in a classically wealthy and distant British family setting, boarding at two independent schools. She trained as an actress at the Central School of Speech and Drama, where she was taught by Elsie Fogerty, and embarked on her career at the Northgate Theatre, Exeter, but was diverted by the outbreak of the Second World War. She joined up as a WREN, and spent the war as a radio mechanic in Craile, Scotland. After the war she married and returned to the Central School to train as a teacher.

As well as the three collections published between 1962 and 1992, she regularly had poems published in various literary and other magazines (including, for example, the New Statesman), and her first book of poetry was published in March 1962 by John Rolfe at the Scorpion Press. The year after this she completed an external degree in English from London University, and broke her spine in an accident at home. Partially paralysed and psychologically traumatised, she was hospitalised for a string of related problems over 30 times in the following six years, and thereafter suffered chronic and intense pain.

She maintained her teaching position, finally retiring in 1987, aged 68, and continued writing, producing seven unpublished novels as well as the normal stream of poetry. Two collections of her poems were published by Peterloo Press in the 1990s, when she also featured as the Poetry Review's Poet of the Month. After a long and difficult descent into increasing disability, she died peacefully at home in December 2005.

Published works

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