'In A. D. Hope’s last book of poems, Orpheus, Hope wanted to represent, in what he instinctively knew was his last volume of poetry, the themes that preoccupied him for a life time. Amidst those poems in which he explores his mortality, ruminates on whether he will be remembered, celebrates his sense of alienation in a world in which he was destined to be an observer, there is a concentrated emphasis on love: erotic love; love between friends; love as voiced in poetry and that love which is engendered in him for women. ' (Author's introduction)