Joseph Sydney Willes Hodges was born in 1829 in Worthing. By 1854, he worked as a portrait painter and exhibited his work at several galleries including the Royal Academy. For a brief period from 1857 to 1865 he served as the secretary of the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society in Falmouth. Hodges found time to write as well: besides poetry, he authored five works of fiction, the first two under the pseudonym "Stanley Hope." He never married. Hodges was found dead in his London studio in 1900. The inquest ruled it death through misadventure.