Edward Hope Coffey Jr. was born in New York City in 1896 and eventually arrived at Princeton, an American college which he was to glorify in She Loves Me Not. He served as a balloon and dirigible pilot in the U. S. Naval Air Corps during the first World War, and in the Army Signal Corps in the late war.

From 1920 to 1925, Mr. Hope worked for an advertising agency. He then became a humorous columnist for the New York Herald Tribune, subsituting for Don Marquis. At the same time, he began writing a series of gay, satirical novels, of which the first was Alice in the Delighted States. (Following it were She Loves Me Not in 1933, Calm Yourself! in 1934, Spanish Omelette in 1937, and Ask Me No Questions in 1938.

She Loves Me Not, Hope's best known book, first appeared serially in The Saturday Evening Post; Howard Lindsay's dramatization was a notable success in New York, as was the movie adaptation starring Bing Crosby. The original incident on which the book was based took place at Yale; the author trasnferred the locale first to a mythical Kingsley University and later to Princeton.

Mr. Hope admits to a decided preference for brunettes, and says he has an awful time not making all heroines dark, brown-eyed girls. His chief dislikes are bunk, "especially highbrow and arty bunk," fricasseed chicken, and solemn people.