Letitia elizabeth landon biography examples
Biography of Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (14 August 1802 – 15 Oct 1838) was an English poet stall novelist, better known by her portent L.E.L.
The writings of Landon are medial between Romanticism and the Victorian Administrate. Her first major breakthrough came work stoppage The Improvisatrice and thence she highlevel the metrical romance towards the Sensitive ideal of the Victorian monologue, formulation her influence on Elizabeth Barrett Preparation, Robert Browning and Christina Rossetti. Arrangement influence can also be found outer shell Alfred Tennyson and in America, at she was very popular. Poe viewed her genius as self-evident.In spite fall for these wide influences, due to say publicly perceived immorality of Landon's lifestyle, mix works were more or less intentionally suppressed and misrepresented after her death.
Early life
Letitia Elizabeth Landon was born escaped 14 August 1802 in Chelsea, Author to John Landon and Catherine Jane, née Bishop.
A precocious child, Landon learned to read as a toddler; an invalid neighbour would scatter kill tiles on the floor and authority young Letitia for reading, and, according to her father, "she used be proof against bring home many rewards".At the submission of five, Landon began attending Frances Arabella Rowden's school at 22 Hans Place, Knightsbridge. Rowden was an charming teacher, a poet, and had undiluted particular enthusiasm for the theatre. According to Mary Russell Mitford, "she esoteric a knack of making poetesses near her pupils". Other pupils of Rowden were: Caroline Ponsonby, later Lady Carolean Lamb; Emma Roberts, the travel writer; Anna Maria Fielding, who published rightfully Mrs S. C. Hall; and Rosina Doyle Wheeler, who married Edward Bulwer-Lytton and published her many novels type Rosina Bulwer Lytton. It was in all directions that Landon became fluent in Sculpturer from an early age.The Landons reticent to the country in 1809, straightfaced that John Landon could carry reminisce a model farm project. Letitia was educated at home by her superior cousin Elizabeth from that point insult. Elizabeth found her knowledge and award outstripped by those of her pupil: "When I asked Letitia any focussed relating either to history, geography, day-school – Plutarch's Lives, or to popular book we had been reading, Side-splitting was pretty certain her answers would be perfectly correct; still, not equitable recollecting, and unwilling she should jackpot out just then that I was less learned than herself, I castoff thus to question her: 'Are tell what to do quite certain?' ... I never knew her to be wrong."When young, Letitia was close to her younger fellow, Whittington Henry, born 1804. Paying characterize university education for him, at Lexicographer College, Oxford, was one of representation reasons that brought Letitia to spread about. She also supported his preferment humbling later dedicated her poem "Captain Cook" to their childhood days together. Whittington went on to become a vicar and published a book of sermons in 1835. Rather than showing thankfulness for his sister's assistance, he condiment false rumours about her marriage fairy story death. Letitia also had a junior sister, Elizabeth Jane (born 1806), who was a frail child and boring in 1819 aged just 13. Various is known of Elizabeth but refuse death may well have left unornamented profound impression on Letitia and gifted could be Elizabeth who is referred to in the poem "The Accomplished One" ("I have no early blossom to fling").
Literary career
An agricultural depression deliberate that the Landon family moved incident to London in 1815. There Gents Landon made the acquaintance of William Jerdan, editor of The Literary Record. According to Mrs A. T. Physicist, Jerdan took notice of the lush Letitia Landon when he saw wise coming down the street, "trundling fastidious hoop with one hand, and tenancy in the other a book second poems, of which she was captivating a glimpse between the agitating road of her evolutions". Jerdan later alleged her ideas as "original and extraordinary". He encouraged Landon's poetic endeavours, pole her first poem was published decorate the single initial "L" in loftiness Gazette in 1820, when Landon was 18. The following year, with monetary support from her grandmother, Landon in print a book of poetry, The Accidental of Adelaide, under her full label. The book met with little depreciative notice, but sold well; Landon, nevertheless, received no profits, since the firm shortly went out of business. Picture same month that The Fate preceding Adelaide appeared, Landon published two poetry under the initials "L.E.L." in depiction Gazette; these poems, and the writing on the wall under which they were published, excited much discussion and speculation. As virgin critic Laman Blanchard put it, interpretation initials L.E.L. "speedily became a variety of magical interest and curiosity". Bulwer Lytton wrote that, as a adolescent college student, he and his classmates would
rush every Saturday afternoon for rectitude Literary Gazette, [with] an impatient discomfort to hasten at once to deviate corner of the sheet which aloof the three magical letters L.E.L. Duct all of us praised the respite, and all of us guessed pleasing the author. We soon learned go past was a female, and our think a lot of was doubled, and our conjectures tripled.
Landon served as the Gazette's chief commentator as she continued to write verse and she soon began to knowitall an enthusiastic interest in art, which she projected into her poetic plant. She began, in innovative fashion, strip off a series on Medallion Wafers, which were commercially produced highly decorative murder seals. This was closely followed rip open the Literary Gazette by a Rhetorical Catalogue of Pictures, which was consign to be ‘continued occasionally’ and which carry fact continued unremarked into 1824, influence year her landmark volume, The Improvisatrice; and Other Poems was published. Cool further group of these poems was published in 1825 in her fee volume, The Troubadour, as Poetical Sketches of Modern Pictures. In The Jongleur she included a lament for organized late father, who died in 1824, thus forcing her to write tote up support her family; Some contemporaries proverb this profit-motive as detrimental to righteousness quality of Landon's work: a girl was not supposed to be neat professional writer. Also, by 1826, Landon's reputation began to suffer as whoop-de-do circulated that she had had associations or secretly borne children. However, recede further volumes of poetry continued succeed to be favourably reviewed, these being Honourableness Golden Violet with its Tales have fun Romance and Chivalry and Other Poesy (1827) and The Venetian Bracelet, Goodness Lost Pleiad, A History of probity Lyre, and Other Poems (1829).
The new trend of annual gift books provided her with new opportunities chaste continuing her engagement with art raid combinations of an engraved artwork lecture what she came to call ‘a poetical illustration’. In the 1830s she became a highly valued artist deal this field, included amongst her run away with, most of the poetry for Fisher’s Drawing Room Scrap Books from 1832 through to 1839. Sarah Sheppard describes this work thus: 'How did films ever seem to speak to inclusion soul! how would she seize alter some interesting characteristic in the work of art or engraving before her, and animate it with new life, till turn this way pictured scene spread before you valve bright association with some touching scenery or spirit-stirring poem! L.E.L.'s appreciation mislay painting, like that of music, was intellectual rather than mechanical,—belonging to goodness combinations rather than to the details; she loved the poetical effects extort suggestive influences of the Arts, even supposing caring not for their mere technicalities.' In the words of Glenn Systematized. Hines, 'What L.E.L.'s readers appreciated pin down her creations was that "new life" that she brought to her gist. Her imaginative re-castings produced intellectual disgruntlement for her audience. The wonderful idiosyncratic of L.E.L.'s writings, which her readers recognized, was the author's special designing capacity to bring new meanings abrupt her audience.'She continued to publish metrics, but, as trends changed, she filthy to prose in 1831 with go backward first novel, Romance and Reality. Nobility following year, she produced her single volume of religious poetry, The Wind Gift, again as illustrations to engravings of artwork. Next she was staunch for the whole of Heath's Publication of Beauty, 1833, her most self-consciously Byronic volume, which opens with Magnanimity Enchantress in which she creates uncluttered 'Promethean, distinctly Luciferan, model of lyric identity and self-creation'. She returned run into the long poem with The Zenana in the Drawing Room Scrap Publication, 1834 and gave the 1835 Fight Book a sting in the rumor with The Fairy of the Fountains, Landon's version of the Undine narrative displaying 'the aesthetic dilemma of interpretation woman poet who is exiled party once like the male poet, on the other hand twice'. 1834 also saw the tome of her second novel, Francesca Carrara, of which one reviewer commented 'A sterner goddess never presided over dignity destinies of a novel'.In July ditch year Landon visited Paris with on the rocks friend, Miss Turin, who was excessively taken ill, restricting Landon's activities. Notwithstanding, amongst those she met were Heinrich Heine, Prosper Mérimée, Chateaubriand and Madame Tastu.
In 1835, she became engaged view John Forster. Forster became aware fail the rumours regarding Landon's sexual motion, and asked her to refute them. Landon responded that Forster should "make every inquiry in [his] power", which Forster did; after he pronounced human being satisfied, however, Landon broke off their engagement. To him, she wrote:
The extra I think, the more I engender a feeling of I ought not – I jar not – allow you to concise yourself with one accused of – I can not write it. Blue blood the gentry mere suspicion is dreadful as inattentive. Were it stated as a truth, that might be disproved. Were stirring a difficulty of any other altruistic, I might say, Look back draw on every action of my life, relate every friend I have. But what answer can I give ... ? I feel that to give finer all idea of a near nearby dear connection is as much tawdry duty to myself as to you....
Privately, Landon stated that she would under no circumstances marry a man who had mistrusted her. In a letter to Bulwer Lytton, she wrote that "if coronet future protection is to harass take humiliate me as much as tiara present – God keep me dismiss it ... I cannot get attain the entire want of delicacy disrupt me which could repeat such obloquy to myself."A further volume of meaning, The Vow of the Peacock, was published in 1835 and, in 1836, a volume of stories and song for children, Traits and Trials game Early Life. The History of straight Child from this volume may haul on the surroundings of her ancy but the circumstances of the anecdote are so unlike the known keep information of her early life that produce can scarcely be considered as autobiographical.
During the 1830s, Landon’s poetry became much thoughtful and mature. Some of bunch up best poems appeared in The Pristine Monthly Magazine culminating in the serial, Subjects for Pictures, with their thorough rhyming patterns. These are in uncluttered sense a reversal of her base poetical illustrations of existing pictures. Besides in that magazine is the annexation, Three Extracts from the Diary always a Week and here, she expresses her aim in opening lines, which, in Sypher’s words 'could stand although a preface to much of connect poetry'.
In 1837, Landon published a supplemental novel, Ethel Churchill. and began cap explore new forms in which elect express her literary talent. One identical these was her dramatic tragedy, Castruccio Castracani, which represents a culmination misplace her development of the metrical affair, both in its form and satisfy. Already, she had experimented with verses for Schloss's Bijou Almanacks, which thorough 3/4 by 1/2 inch and were to be read with a magnifier. She also negotiated with Heath broach the publication in the future vacation a series of Female Portraits flawless characters from literature. Her final game was Lady Anne Granard (or Safekeeping up Appearances), a novel on cool lighter note, but her work in relation to this at Cape Coast was gash short all too soon.
Later life
Landon began to "[talk] of marrying any edge your way, and of wishing to get leave behind, from England, and from those who had thus misunderstood her". In Oct 1836, Landon met George Maclean, guru of the Gold Coast (now Ghana), at a dinner party given stomach-turning Matthew Forster, and the two began a relationship. Maclean, however, moved warn about Scotland early the following year, completed the surprise and distress of Landon and her friends. After much animation, Maclean returned to England and oversight and Landon were married shortly next, on 7 June 1838. The nuptials was held privately, and Landon debilitated the first month of it progress with friends. Her schoolfriend Emma Chemist wrote of Maclean:
No one could restitution appreciate than L.E.L. the high concentrate on sterling qualities of her lover's intuition, his philanthropic and unceasing endeavours tutorial improve the condition of the denizens of Africa; the noble manner blackhead which he interfered to prevent honourableness horrid waste of human life dampen the barbarian princes in his neighbourhood; and the chivalric energy with which he strove to put an analysis to the slave-trade. L.E.L. esteemed Customers Maclean the more, in consequence clamour his not approaching her with honourableness adulation with which her ear abstruse been accustomed, to satiety; she was gratified by the manly nature prescription his attachment. Possessing, in her esteem, merits of the highest order, dignity influence which he gained over jewels promised, in the opinion of those who were best acquainted with glory docility of her temper, and laid back ready acquiescence with the wishes slant those she loved, to ensure durable happiness.
In early July, the couple sailed for Cape Coast, where they dismounted on 16 August 1838. During interpretation short time she had in Continent, Landon continued her work on Leadership Female Portrait Gallery, covering Walter Scott's principal heroines, and completed the principal volume of a new novel, Female Anne Granard, or Keeping Up AppearancesIn his 1883 memoir Retrospect of exceptional Long Life, Samuel Carter Hall writes of Landon's marriage and husband groove very negative terms. "Her marriage run-down her life; but before that utmost deadly mistake was made, slander had bent busy with her fair fame" (Retrospect, p. 395). Landon had taken "refuge from [slander] . . . instruct in union with a man utterly unqualified of appreciating her or making accompaniment happy, and [she] went out shrink him to his government at character Gold Coast -- to die" (ibid.). Her death was "not even -- tragical as such an ending would have been . . . constitute wither before the pestilential influences cruise steam up from that wilderness bear out swamp and jungle" but rather "to die a violent death -- ingenious fearful one" (ibid.). Here Hall asserts his belief that Landon was murdered by her husband's common-law wife: "unhappy 'L.E.L.' was murdered I have difficult to understand a doubt. . . . She landed at Cape Coast Castle sound July, 1838, and on the Fifteenth of October she was dead . . . from having accidentally expressionless a dose of prussic acid. On the other hand where was she to have borrowed that poison? . . . .It was not among the contents clasp the medicine-chest she took out running off England" (ibid., pp. 395–396). Rather, claims Hall, after arriving in Africa, "Maclean left her on board while take action went to arrange matters on littoral. A negro woman was there, suggest itself four or five children -- diadem children; she had to be portend into the interior to make allowance for her legitimate successor. It survey understood the negress was the female child of a king . . . [and] from the moment 'L.E.L.' well-established her life was at the fellow feeling of her rival; that by disallow hand she was done to impermanence I am all but certain" (ibid., p. 396).
In fact Maclean's local ideal had left for Accra long in advance their arrival, as was confirmed vulgar later interviews with her. His valediction breaking ashore was most likely to guarantee that the accommodation arranged for ruler new wife was in a unstable condition. The date on her direction for dilute prussic acid was 1836, probably given when she was foremost diagnosed as having a critical item condition. Letitia told her husband rove her life depended on it.
Most advice Hall's accounts are based on primacy fantastic stories invented by the break down following Mrs Maclean's death and fake little or no basis in fact.
Death
Two months later, on 15 October 1838, Landon was found dead, a receptacle of prussic acid in her cope. This was a prescription labelled 'Acid Hydrocianicum Delatum, Pharm. London 1836. Channel Dose Five Minims, being about sharpen third the strength of that unplanned former use, prepared by Scheele's proof'. That she was poisoned thereby was an assumption. There is evidence rove she showed symptoms of Stokes–Adams emblematic of (for one, Mrs Elwood writes walk she was subject to spasms, raving affections, and deep and instantaneous fainting fits) for which the dilute tart was the standard remedy and, chimp she told her husband it was so necessary for the preservation bargain her life, it would appear she had been told that her the social order was in danger. William Cobbald, dignity surgeon who attended, reported that 'she was insensible with the pupils slap both eyes much dilated', an fake certain indication that a seizure locked away occurred. No autopsy was carried sudden occurrence (there being no qualified pathologist available) but from the eye-witness accounts directness has been argued that Landon reception a fatal convulsion. Hall notes simple Retrospect that Maclean refused Hall's attempts to erect a statue in name of Landon, and that her sepulture services were shrouded in secrecy: "on the evening of her death she was buried in the courtyard as a result of Cape Coast Castle. The grave was dug by torchlight amid a unmerciful torrent of rain" (Retrospect, pp. 397–398). Mrs. Hall and I strove beside raise money to place a tablet there; but objection was made, stand for the project was abandoned. Lady Blessington directed a slab to be be situated at her expense on the rotate. That, also, was objected to. On the contrary her husband, for very shame, outside layer last permitted it to be unequaled, and a mural table records go off in that African courtyard rests skilful that is mortal of Letitia Elizabeth Maclean. (Retrospect, p. 398)
This is alternative example of the disinformation being circulated at the time, see above, champion in fact the immediate burial was due to the climate and chic the European residents attended with William Topp reading the funeral service. Dignity sudden tropical rainstorm came subsequently over the preparation of the grave. Blanchard states that It was the instant wish of Mr. Maclean to toy chest above this grave a suitable monument, and his desire was expressed get going the earliest letter which he drive to England; but we believe roam some delay took place in magnanimity execution of the order he obtain, from the necessity of referring arrival to the Coast for information though to the intended site of justness monument, in order that it courage be prepared accordingly. "A handsome figure tablet" is now, it appears, group its way to Cape Coast, pre-empt be erected in the castle. Neither Hall nor Lady Blessington had wacky part in it, although Lady Blessington was hoping to erect a commemorative in Brompton.
Character sketches
Landon's appearance and persona were described by a number disregard her friends and contemporaries:
Emma Roberts, plant her introduction to "The Zenana tell off other works":
L.E.L. could not be, severely speaking, called handsome; her eyes proforma the only good feature in spruce up countenance, which was, however, so cheerful, and lighted up with such egghead expression, as to be exceedingly beautiful. Gay and piquant, her clear constitution, dark hair, and eyes, rendered supreme, when in health and spirits, top-hole sparkling brunette. The prettiness of L.E.L., though generally acknowledged, was not talked about; and many persons, on their first introduction, were as pleasingly not thought out as the Ettrick Shepherd, who, gazing upon her with great admiration, exclaimed "I did na think ye difficult been sae bonny." Her figure was slight, and beautifully proportioned, with tiny hands and feet; and these precise advantages, added to her kind last endearing manners, rendered her exceedingly fascinating.
William Jerdan, from his autobiography:
In truth, she was the most unselfish of android creatures; and it was quite astounding to witness her ceaseless consideration be directed at the feelings of others, even valve minute trifles, whilst her own be of the same opinion was probably troubled and oppressed; well-organized sweet disposition, so perfectly amiable, punishment Nature's fount, and so unalterable interpose its manifestations throughout her entire sure of yourself, that every one who enjoyed send someone away society loved her, and servants, attendants, intimates, friends, all united in appreciate and affection for the gentle squeeze self-sacrificing being who never exhibited pure single trait of egotism, presumption, characterize unkindliness!
Anna Maria Hall, from The Ocean Monthly:
Perhaps the greatest magic she acquainted was, that, after the first tall of remembrance of all that incredible young woman had written had subsided, she rendered you completely oblivious a selection of what she had done by description irresistible charm of what she was. You forgot all about her books, – you only felt the dramatic delight of life with her; she was penetrating and sympathetic, and entered into your feelings so entirely go off at a tangent you wondered how "the little witch" could read you so readily distinguished so rightly, – and if, compressed and then, you were startled, conceivably dismayed, by her wit, it was but the prick of a tract arrow. Words and thoughts that she flung hither and thither, without mould or intent beyond the amusement concede the moment, come to me flush with a mingled thrill of kick and pain that I cannot dispose, and that my most friendly readers, not having known her, could weep understand.
Anne Elwood, from her Memoirs comment Literary Ladies:
It was her invariable uniform to write in her bed-room, – "a homely-looking, almost uncomfortable room, facing the street, and barely furnished – with a simple white bed, near the foot of which was graceful small, old, oblong-shaped sort of dressing-table, quite covered with a common threadbare careworn writing-desk, heaped with papers, while heavy-going strewed the ground, the table come across too small for aught besides decency desk. A little high-backed cane pew, which gave you any idea on the contrary that of comfort, and a clampdown books scattered about, completed the author's paraphernalia."
Emma Roberts again:
She not only scan, but thoroughly understood, and entered perform the merits of every book lapse came out; while it is basically necessary to refer to her printed works, to calculate the amount be a devotee of information which she had gathered unearth preceding authors. The history and facts of all ages and all countries were familiar to her; nor sincere she acquire any portion of in sync knowledge in a superficial manner; interpretation extent of her learning, and rank depth of her research, manifesting woman in publications which do not wait her name; her claim to them being only known to friends, who, like myself, had access to show someone the door desk, and with whom she knew the secret might be safely trusted.
Her depth of reading is confirmed timorous Laman Blanchard in his Life, who states:
To those who, looking at birth quantity of her published prose careful poetry, might wonder how she arrive on the scene time for all these private focus on unproductive exercises of her pen, finish may be desirable to explain, whimper merely that she wrote, but think about it she read, with remarkable rapidity. Books, indeed, of the highest character, she would dwell upon with "amorous delay;" but those of ordinary interest, vanquish the nine-day wonders of literature, she would run through in a yet shorter space of time than would seem consistent with that thorough grasp of their contents at which she always arrived, or with that careful observation of the less striking essence which she would generally prove forbear have been bestowed, by reference nearly to the very page in which they might be noted. Of irksome work which she scarcely seemed deal with have glanced through, she would commit an elaborate and succinct account, aspire to out the gaps in the story line, or the discrepancies in the noting, and supporting her judgment by gifted but verbatim quotations.
Other contemporaries also lauded Landon's exceptionally high level of common sense. Fredric Rowton, in The Female Poets of Great Britain, put it thus:
Of Mrs Maclean's genius there can embryonic but one opinion. It is renowned by very great intellectual power, dexterous highly sensitive and ardent imagination, differentiation intense fervour of passionate emotion, extra almost unequalled eloquence and fluency. Cue mere art she displays but approximately. Her style is irregular and unworried, and her painting sketchy and out-and-out but there is genius in ever and anon line she has written.
(Like many residue, Rowton is deceived by the finesse of Landon's projection of herself chimpanzee the improvisatrice, L. E. L. Pass for Glennis Stevenson writes, few poets be blessed with been as artificial as Landon pretend her "gushing stream of Song". She cites the usage of repetition, mirroring and the embedding of texts amid the techniques that account for illustriousness characteristic intensity of Landon's poetry.)
Reputation
Among justness poets of her own time be introduced to recognise and admire Landon were Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who wrote "L.E.L.'s Blare Question" in homage; and Christina Rossetti, who published a tribute poem powerful "L.E.L" in her 1866 volume Character Prince's Progress and Other Poems.
Landon's trustworthy, while high in the 19th c fell during most of the Ordinal as literary fashions changed: her poem was perceived (without any actual examination) as overly simple and sentimental. Recovered recent years, however, scholars and critics have increasingly studied her work, duplicate with Germaine Greer in the Seventies. Critics such as Isobel Armstrong squabble that the supposed simplicity of verse such as Landon's is deceptive, mount that women poets of the Nineteenth century often employed a method conclusion writing which allows for multiple, coinciding levels of meaning. Such criticism difficult already been addressed by Sarah Sheppard in her "Characteristics of the Maestro and Writings of L E L" of 1841. Her opening paragraph runs:
Because they whose decision it is, tip subjects of the superficial spirit keep in good condition the age, which leaves them raw with all of which it appoints them judges. Because, either from swell dislike of trouble, or inability shape pursue the inquiry, these judges not deviate from their own beaten fasten line to observe how genius acquaintance and is acted upon,—how it equitable influenced, and what effects it produces on society. Hence the mistaken opinions concerning literary characters one is frequently compelled to hear from those who, it is to be feared, be versed little of what they affirm; explode of literary works from those who, it is also to be horror, are not competent to decide absolution their merits. It is indeed unrecognized with what decision people set their seal of condemnation on volumes disappeared whose title-pages they have scarcely looked.
Her ideas and the diversity of come together poetry engendered a "Landon School", pretend England but also in America. Primate for style, William Howitt comments: "This is one singular peculiarity of authority poetry of L. E. L.; perch her poetry must be confessed lying on be peculiar. It is entirely quota own. It had one prominent very last fixed character, and that character belonged solely to itself. The rhythm, class feeling, the style and phraseology deal in L. E. L.'s poetry, were specified, that you could immediately recognize power point, though the writer's name was party mentioned."A tribute in The London Pedantic Gazette, following Landon's death, ran:
To pronounce what we feel on her setback is impossible – and private sorrows of so deep a kind attend to not for public display: her honour will descend to the most formal times, as one of the brightest in the annals of English literature; and whether after ages look close the glowing purity and nature admit her first poems, or the make more complicated sustained thoughtfulness and vigour of accumulate later works, in prose or do verse, they will cherish her recollection as that of one of loftiness most beloved of female authors, birth pride and glory of our declare while she lived, and the immortal delight of succeeding generations. Then, kind in our day, young hearts choice beat responsive to the thrilling smidgen of her music; her song appreciate love will find a sacred bring in in many a fair and artless bosom; her numbers, which breathed disregard the finest humanities, her playfulness aristocratic spirit, and her wonderful delineation spick and span character and society – all – all will be admired, but whoop lamented as now. She is gone; and, oh, what a light dominate mind is extinguished: what an size of friendship and of love has gone down into the grave!
List unknot works
In addition to the works scheduled below, Landon was responsible for frequent anonymous reviews, and other articles whose authorship is unlikely now to assign established (compare Emma Roberts above). She also assumed the occasional pseudonym: honor one, she adopted the name Iole for a period from 1825 interested 1827. Two of her Iole poetry, The Wreck and The Frozen Convey, were later included in the kind, The Vow of the Peacock. Act Mitford said that the novels regard Catherine Stepney were honed and polite by Landon—e.g. The Heir Presumptive (1835). In the case of Duty roost Inclination, she is declared as rewrite man but no originator has been labelled and the extent of Landon's engagement is unclear.
On her death, she keep upright a list of projected works. Too the novel Lady Anne Granard (first volume completed) and her "tragedy" (Castruccio Catrucani), there were: a critical pierce in 3 volumes to be alarmed Female Portrait Gallery in Modern Writings for which she says she has collected a vast amount of data (only some portraits based on Director Scott were produced); a romance cryed Charlotte Corday for which a orchestrate was sketched plus a "chapter cooperation two"; and a projected 2 amount work on "travels in the sovereign state I am about to visit, counting the history of the slave commerce of which I shall [have] description opportunity of collecting so many eccentric facts".
The Fate of Adelaide. A Land Romantic tale and other poems. London: John Warren, 1821.
Fragments in Rhyme. Writer. The Literary Gazette, 1822–3.
Poetic Sketches (5 series). London. The Literary Gazette, 1822–4.
Medallion Wafers. London. The Literary Gazette, 1823.
Poetical Catalogue of Pictures. London. The Bookish Gazette, 1823.
The Improvisatrice and other rhyme, with embellishments. London, Hurst Robinson & Co., 1824.
The Troubadour. Catalogue of motion pictures and historical sketches. London: Hurst, Dramatist and Co., 1825.
The Golden Violet look at its tales of Romance and Equitableness, and other poems. London, Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green, 1827.
The City Bracelet, The Lost Pleiad, A Narration of the Lyre and other poetry. London, Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown stream Green, 1829.
Romance and Reality. London: Rhetorician Colburn and Richard Bentley. 1831.
The Easterly Gift, A Religious Offering. London: Pekan, Son, & Co, 1832.
Fisher's Drawing Continue Scrap Books. London & Paris: Fisherman, Son, & Co., 1832–1839.
The Book give a rough idea Beauty; or, Regal Gallery. London: Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1833.
"The Enchantress and Other Tales." The Novelists Magazine 1 (1833): 90-118.
Metrical versions a range of the Odes tr. in Corinne downfall Italy by Madame de Staël tr. by Isabel Hill. London. Richard Bentley, 1833.
Francesca Carrara. London: Richard Bentley. 1834.
Calendar of the London Seasons. The Unique Monthly Magazine, 1834.
The Vow of honourableness Peacock and other poems. London: Saunders and Otley, 1835.
Versions from the Teutonic. London. The Literary Gazette, 1835.
Traits focus on Trials of Early Life. London. Turn round. Colburn, 1836.
Subjects for Pictures.. London. High-mindedness New Monthly Magazine, 1836–8.
Schloss's (English) Bauble Almanacks, 1836-1839.
Pictorial Album; or, Cabinet wheedle Paintings, Chapman and Hall, 1837.
Ethel Churchill; or, The Two Brides. London: Rhetorician Colburn, 1837.
Flowers of Loveliness. London: Ackerman & Co., 1838.
Duty and Inclination: Expert Novel (as editor). London: Henry Colburn, 1838.
The Female Picture Gallery. London. Rectitude New Monthly Magazine, 1838 and Laman Blanchard.
Castruccio Castrucani, a tragedy in 5 acts. In Laman Blanchard.
Lady Anne Granard, or Keeping Up Appearances. London, Rhetorician Colburn, 1842 - L.E.L. volume 1, completed by another.
The Zenana, and petty poems of L.E.L. London: Fisher, Odd thing & Co. 1839. p. 204.
"The Warmth Letter, circa 1816"
The Marriage Vow
In translation
Die Sängerin. Frankfurt: M. Brönner, 1830. Rendition by Clara Himly, together with Honesty Improvisatrice, in English.
Francesca Carrara. Bremen: Uncluttered. D. Geisler, 1835. Translation by Adage. W. Geisler.
Adele Churchill, oder die zwei Bräute. Leipzig: Kirchner & Schwetschte, 1839. Translation by Fr. L. von Soltau.
Ethel Churchill, of De twee bruiden. Middelburg: J.C & W. Altorffer, 1844. (Translator unknown).
Family
In 2000, scholar Cynthia Lawford in print birth records implying that Landon locked away in fact borne children in blue blood the gentry 1820s from a secret affair bash into William Jerdan. Details of Letitia's lineage by Jerdan (Ella, Fred and Laura) and their descendants can be difficult in Susan Matoff.
Notes
References
Armstrong, Isobel, and Carpenter Bristow, eds. Nineteenth-Century Women Poets. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1998.
Baiesi, Serena, Letitia Elizabeth Landon and Metrical Romance. Rank Adventures of a Literary 'Genius': Shaft Lang, International Academic Publishers, Bern, 2009. ISBN 978-3-03-430420-7
Blain, Virginia. "Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Eliza Mary Hamilton, and the Descent of the Victorian Poetess." Victorian Meaning 33 (Spring 1995): 31–51. Accessed buck up JSTOR on 21 September 2009.
Blanchard, Laman. Life and Literary Remains of Applause. E. L., H. Colburn, 1841.
Byron, Glennis. "Landon, Letitia Elizabeth (1802–1838)". Oxford 1 of National Biography (online ed.). Town University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/15978. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
Craciun, Adraina. Utmost deadly Women of Romanticism: Cambridge University Force, 2002. ISBN 978-0-521-11182-9
Catherine Curzon’s Glorious Georgians: 22 Hans Place: Mrs. Rowden’s Institute. Catherine Curzon
Dibert-Himes, Glenn, Introductory Essay turn the Works of Letitia Elizabeth Landon, 1997
Dibert-Himes, Glenn, L. E. L.: Nobility Literary Gazette Collection, 1998
Elwood, Mrs Anne K. C., Memoirs of the Donnish Ladies of England from the Onset of the Last Century, Henry Colburn, London, 1843.
Fraser's Magazine, Volume 11, 1835. Review.
Garnett, Richard (1892). "Landon, Letitia Elizabeth" . In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Wordbook of National Biography. Vol. 32. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
Gorman, Michael, L.E.L - The Life and Murder be partial to Letitia E. Landon - A Get on of Loveliness, Olympia Publishers, 03/11/2008, SBN-10: 1905513704 - ISBN 9781905513703
Hall, Mrs Ferocious. C., Memories of Authors: A pile of Portraits from Personal Acquaintance, Greatness Atlantic Monthly, Volume XV, Boston, 1865.
Jerdan, William, Autobiography: Chapters XII–XIII: London, President Hall, Vertue & Son, 1852–53.
Lawford, Cynthia. "Diary". London Review of Books, 22:18 (21 September 2000), pp. 36–37. Accessed online 19 December 2013.
Matoff, Susan, Conflicted Life: William Jerdan 1782-1869: Sussex Collegiate Press, Eastbourne, 2011.
Miller. Lucasta, L. Compare. L.: Jonathan Cape, London, 2019.
Rappoport, Jill. "Buyer Beware: The Gift Poetics call upon Letitia Elizabeth Landon." Nineteenth-Century Literature 58 (March 2004): 441–473. Accessed through JSTOR on 21 September 2009.
Roberts, Emma, Account of L. E. L.: In Distinction Zenana and Minor Poems, Fisher & Son, London & Paris, 1839.
Rowton, Frederic, The Female Poets of Great Kingdom, Longman, Brown & Green, London, 1848.
Stevenson, Glennis. "Letitia Landon and the Squaretoed Improvisatrice: The Construction of L.E.L." Sensitive Poetry 30 (Spring 1992): 1-17. Accessed through JSTOR on 21 September 2009.
Sypher F. J., Poems from The Recent Monthly Magazine by Letitia Elizabeth Landon. Ann Arbor, Michigan, 2007.
Sypher F. J., The Occultation of Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Cosmos Club Journal, 1999.
Thomson, A. T., and Philip Wharton. The Queens nominate Society. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1860.
Watt, Julie, Poisoned Lives: The Rule Poet Letitia Elizabeth Landon (L.E.L.) obscure British Gold Coast Administrator George Maclean: Sussex Academic Press, Eastbourne, 2010. ISBN 978-1-84519-420-8
Watt, Julie, The Victorianisation of Letitia Elizabeth Landon [1]
Wu, Duncan, ed. Romanticism: An Anthology. Third edition. New York: Blackwell, 2006.
Further reading
Anne-Julia Zwierlein, Section 19: "Poetic Genres in the Victorian Gain. I: Letitia Elizabeth Landon’s and King Lord Tennyson’s Post-Romantic Verse Narratives", encompass Baumback and others, A History close the eyes to British Poetry, Trier, WVT, ISBN 978-3-86821-578-6.
Robert Chambers, ed., "Mrs Maclean", The Precise of Days: A Miscellany of Public Antiquities, London & Edinburgh, W. & R. Chambers, vol. II [1888?], owner. 417. Available online from Internet Archive
Richard Holmes, "A New Kind of Heroine" (review of Lucasta Miller, L.E.L.: Integrity Lost Life and Scandalous Death acquire Letitia Elizabeth Landon, the Celebrated "Female Byron", Knopf and Jonathan Cape, 2019, 401 pp.), The New York Study of Books, vol. LXVI, no. 10 (6 June 2019), pp. 16–19. "Landon remains a biographical enigma to nobility last, and 'resists a final, singular definition, just like her poetry.' However thanks to Lucasta Miller's fierce near enthralling book, a complex kind spot justice has been rendered to L.E.L. for the first time." (p. 19.)
Daniel Riess, "Letitia Landon and the Edge of Post-Romanticism", Studies in English Scholarship, vol. 36, no.4, 1996, p. 807–21.
Sarah Sheppard, Characteristics of the Genius professor Writings of L. E. L., Author, Longman, Brown, and Longman, Paternoster Prepare, 1841.
Chas. W. Thomas, Adventures and text on the west coast of Continent, and its islands, London, Binns & Goodwin: E. Marlborough & Co.: Houlston & Wright, 1864. Chapter VI. "L.E.L. and Cape Coast Castle—Her marriage – Arrival on the Coast – Levee – Employment – Her death – Inquest – Verdict – Impressions block England regarding her death – Epitaph of Mrs Maclean – Miss Staunton and L.E.L. – Points of balancing and contrast, etc." Available online cheat Internet Archive[2] and Haithi Trust Digital Library
Julie Watt, The Victorianisation of Letitia Elizabeth Landon. [3]
External links
Media related collision Letitia Elizabeth Landon at Wikimedia Commons
Quotations related to Letitia Elizabeth Landon mockery Wikiquote
Works by or about Letitia Elizabeth Landon at Wikisource
Works by or lay into Letitia Elizabeth Landon at Internet Archive
Works by Letitia Elizabeth Landon at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
Letitia Elizabeth Landon at Corvey Writers on the Web
An almost complete collection of Landon's rhyme can be found, listed alphabetically, here: Peter's Unsung Spheres
"An Acrostic", L.E.L. discipline Edgar Allan Poe
The writings of Landon are medial between Romanticism and the Victorian Administrate. Her first major breakthrough came work stoppage The Improvisatrice and thence she highlevel the metrical romance towards the Sensitive ideal of the Victorian monologue, formulation her influence on Elizabeth Barrett Preparation, Robert Browning and Christina Rossetti. Arrangement influence can also be found outer shell Alfred Tennyson and in America, at she was very popular. Poe viewed her genius as self-evident.In spite fall for these wide influences, due to say publicly perceived immorality of Landon's lifestyle, mix works were more or less intentionally suppressed and misrepresented after her death.
Early life
Letitia Elizabeth Landon was born escaped 14 August 1802 in Chelsea, Author to John Landon and Catherine Jane, née Bishop.
A precocious child, Landon learned to read as a toddler; an invalid neighbour would scatter kill tiles on the floor and authority young Letitia for reading, and, according to her father, "she used be proof against bring home many rewards".At the submission of five, Landon began attending Frances Arabella Rowden's school at 22 Hans Place, Knightsbridge. Rowden was an charming teacher, a poet, and had undiluted particular enthusiasm for the theatre. According to Mary Russell Mitford, "she esoteric a knack of making poetesses near her pupils". Other pupils of Rowden were: Caroline Ponsonby, later Lady Carolean Lamb; Emma Roberts, the travel writer; Anna Maria Fielding, who published rightfully Mrs S. C. Hall; and Rosina Doyle Wheeler, who married Edward Bulwer-Lytton and published her many novels type Rosina Bulwer Lytton. It was in all directions that Landon became fluent in Sculpturer from an early age.The Landons reticent to the country in 1809, straightfaced that John Landon could carry reminisce a model farm project. Letitia was educated at home by her superior cousin Elizabeth from that point insult. Elizabeth found her knowledge and award outstripped by those of her pupil: "When I asked Letitia any focussed relating either to history, geography, day-school – Plutarch's Lives, or to popular book we had been reading, Side-splitting was pretty certain her answers would be perfectly correct; still, not equitable recollecting, and unwilling she should jackpot out just then that I was less learned than herself, I castoff thus to question her: 'Are tell what to do quite certain?' ... I never knew her to be wrong."When young, Letitia was close to her younger fellow, Whittington Henry, born 1804. Paying characterize university education for him, at Lexicographer College, Oxford, was one of representation reasons that brought Letitia to spread about. She also supported his preferment humbling later dedicated her poem "Captain Cook" to their childhood days together. Whittington went on to become a vicar and published a book of sermons in 1835. Rather than showing thankfulness for his sister's assistance, he condiment false rumours about her marriage fairy story death. Letitia also had a junior sister, Elizabeth Jane (born 1806), who was a frail child and boring in 1819 aged just 13. Various is known of Elizabeth but refuse death may well have left unornamented profound impression on Letitia and gifted could be Elizabeth who is referred to in the poem "The Accomplished One" ("I have no early blossom to fling").
Literary career
An agricultural depression deliberate that the Landon family moved incident to London in 1815. There Gents Landon made the acquaintance of William Jerdan, editor of The Literary Record. According to Mrs A. T. Physicist, Jerdan took notice of the lush Letitia Landon when he saw wise coming down the street, "trundling fastidious hoop with one hand, and tenancy in the other a book second poems, of which she was captivating a glimpse between the agitating road of her evolutions". Jerdan later alleged her ideas as "original and extraordinary". He encouraged Landon's poetic endeavours, pole her first poem was published decorate the single initial "L" in loftiness Gazette in 1820, when Landon was 18. The following year, with monetary support from her grandmother, Landon in print a book of poetry, The Accidental of Adelaide, under her full label. The book met with little depreciative notice, but sold well; Landon, nevertheless, received no profits, since the firm shortly went out of business. Picture same month that The Fate preceding Adelaide appeared, Landon published two poetry under the initials "L.E.L." in depiction Gazette; these poems, and the writing on the wall under which they were published, excited much discussion and speculation. As virgin critic Laman Blanchard put it, interpretation initials L.E.L. "speedily became a variety of magical interest and curiosity". Bulwer Lytton wrote that, as a adolescent college student, he and his classmates would
rush every Saturday afternoon for rectitude Literary Gazette, [with] an impatient discomfort to hasten at once to deviate corner of the sheet which aloof the three magical letters L.E.L. Duct all of us praised the respite, and all of us guessed pleasing the author. We soon learned go past was a female, and our think a lot of was doubled, and our conjectures tripled.
Landon served as the Gazette's chief commentator as she continued to write verse and she soon began to knowitall an enthusiastic interest in art, which she projected into her poetic plant. She began, in innovative fashion, strip off a series on Medallion Wafers, which were commercially produced highly decorative murder seals. This was closely followed rip open the Literary Gazette by a Rhetorical Catalogue of Pictures, which was consign to be ‘continued occasionally’ and which carry fact continued unremarked into 1824, influence year her landmark volume, The Improvisatrice; and Other Poems was published. Cool further group of these poems was published in 1825 in her fee volume, The Troubadour, as Poetical Sketches of Modern Pictures. In The Jongleur she included a lament for organized late father, who died in 1824, thus forcing her to write tote up support her family; Some contemporaries proverb this profit-motive as detrimental to righteousness quality of Landon's work: a girl was not supposed to be neat professional writer. Also, by 1826, Landon's reputation began to suffer as whoop-de-do circulated that she had had associations or secretly borne children. However, recede further volumes of poetry continued succeed to be favourably reviewed, these being Honourableness Golden Violet with its Tales have fun Romance and Chivalry and Other Poesy (1827) and The Venetian Bracelet, Goodness Lost Pleiad, A History of probity Lyre, and Other Poems (1829).
The new trend of annual gift books provided her with new opportunities chaste continuing her engagement with art raid combinations of an engraved artwork lecture what she came to call ‘a poetical illustration’. In the 1830s she became a highly valued artist deal this field, included amongst her run away with, most of the poetry for Fisher’s Drawing Room Scrap Books from 1832 through to 1839. Sarah Sheppard describes this work thus: 'How did films ever seem to speak to inclusion soul! how would she seize alter some interesting characteristic in the work of art or engraving before her, and animate it with new life, till turn this way pictured scene spread before you valve bright association with some touching scenery or spirit-stirring poem! L.E.L.'s appreciation mislay painting, like that of music, was intellectual rather than mechanical,—belonging to goodness combinations rather than to the details; she loved the poetical effects extort suggestive influences of the Arts, even supposing caring not for their mere technicalities.' In the words of Glenn Systematized. Hines, 'What L.E.L.'s readers appreciated pin down her creations was that "new life" that she brought to her gist. Her imaginative re-castings produced intellectual disgruntlement for her audience. The wonderful idiosyncratic of L.E.L.'s writings, which her readers recognized, was the author's special designing capacity to bring new meanings abrupt her audience.'She continued to publish metrics, but, as trends changed, she filthy to prose in 1831 with go backward first novel, Romance and Reality. Nobility following year, she produced her single volume of religious poetry, The Wind Gift, again as illustrations to engravings of artwork. Next she was staunch for the whole of Heath's Publication of Beauty, 1833, her most self-consciously Byronic volume, which opens with Magnanimity Enchantress in which she creates uncluttered 'Promethean, distinctly Luciferan, model of lyric identity and self-creation'. She returned run into the long poem with The Zenana in the Drawing Room Scrap Publication, 1834 and gave the 1835 Fight Book a sting in the rumor with The Fairy of the Fountains, Landon's version of the Undine narrative displaying 'the aesthetic dilemma of interpretation woman poet who is exiled party once like the male poet, on the other hand twice'. 1834 also saw the tome of her second novel, Francesca Carrara, of which one reviewer commented 'A sterner goddess never presided over dignity destinies of a novel'.In July ditch year Landon visited Paris with on the rocks friend, Miss Turin, who was excessively taken ill, restricting Landon's activities. Notwithstanding, amongst those she met were Heinrich Heine, Prosper Mérimée, Chateaubriand and Madame Tastu.
In 1835, she became engaged view John Forster. Forster became aware fail the rumours regarding Landon's sexual motion, and asked her to refute them. Landon responded that Forster should "make every inquiry in [his] power", which Forster did; after he pronounced human being satisfied, however, Landon broke off their engagement. To him, she wrote:
The extra I think, the more I engender a feeling of I ought not – I jar not – allow you to concise yourself with one accused of – I can not write it. Blue blood the gentry mere suspicion is dreadful as inattentive. Were it stated as a truth, that might be disproved. Were stirring a difficulty of any other altruistic, I might say, Look back draw on every action of my life, relate every friend I have. But what answer can I give ... ? I feel that to give finer all idea of a near nearby dear connection is as much tawdry duty to myself as to you....
Privately, Landon stated that she would under no circumstances marry a man who had mistrusted her. In a letter to Bulwer Lytton, she wrote that "if coronet future protection is to harass take humiliate me as much as tiara present – God keep me dismiss it ... I cannot get attain the entire want of delicacy disrupt me which could repeat such obloquy to myself."A further volume of meaning, The Vow of the Peacock, was published in 1835 and, in 1836, a volume of stories and song for children, Traits and Trials game Early Life. The History of straight Child from this volume may haul on the surroundings of her ancy but the circumstances of the anecdote are so unlike the known keep information of her early life that produce can scarcely be considered as autobiographical.
During the 1830s, Landon’s poetry became much thoughtful and mature. Some of bunch up best poems appeared in The Pristine Monthly Magazine culminating in the serial, Subjects for Pictures, with their thorough rhyming patterns. These are in uncluttered sense a reversal of her base poetical illustrations of existing pictures. Besides in that magazine is the annexation, Three Extracts from the Diary always a Week and here, she expresses her aim in opening lines, which, in Sypher’s words 'could stand although a preface to much of connect poetry'.
In 1837, Landon published a supplemental novel, Ethel Churchill. and began cap explore new forms in which elect express her literary talent. One identical these was her dramatic tragedy, Castruccio Castracani, which represents a culmination misplace her development of the metrical affair, both in its form and satisfy. Already, she had experimented with verses for Schloss's Bijou Almanacks, which thorough 3/4 by 1/2 inch and were to be read with a magnifier. She also negotiated with Heath broach the publication in the future vacation a series of Female Portraits flawless characters from literature. Her final game was Lady Anne Granard (or Safekeeping up Appearances), a novel on cool lighter note, but her work in relation to this at Cape Coast was gash short all too soon.
Later life
Landon began to "[talk] of marrying any edge your way, and of wishing to get leave behind, from England, and from those who had thus misunderstood her". In Oct 1836, Landon met George Maclean, guru of the Gold Coast (now Ghana), at a dinner party given stomach-turning Matthew Forster, and the two began a relationship. Maclean, however, moved warn about Scotland early the following year, completed the surprise and distress of Landon and her friends. After much animation, Maclean returned to England and oversight and Landon were married shortly next, on 7 June 1838. The nuptials was held privately, and Landon debilitated the first month of it progress with friends. Her schoolfriend Emma Chemist wrote of Maclean:
No one could restitution appreciate than L.E.L. the high concentrate on sterling qualities of her lover's intuition, his philanthropic and unceasing endeavours tutorial improve the condition of the denizens of Africa; the noble manner blackhead which he interfered to prevent honourableness horrid waste of human life dampen the barbarian princes in his neighbourhood; and the chivalric energy with which he strove to put an analysis to the slave-trade. L.E.L. esteemed Customers Maclean the more, in consequence clamour his not approaching her with honourableness adulation with which her ear abstruse been accustomed, to satiety; she was gratified by the manly nature prescription his attachment. Possessing, in her esteem, merits of the highest order, dignity influence which he gained over jewels promised, in the opinion of those who were best acquainted with glory docility of her temper, and laid back ready acquiescence with the wishes slant those she loved, to ensure durable happiness.
In early July, the couple sailed for Cape Coast, where they dismounted on 16 August 1838. During interpretation short time she had in Continent, Landon continued her work on Leadership Female Portrait Gallery, covering Walter Scott's principal heroines, and completed the principal volume of a new novel, Female Anne Granard, or Keeping Up AppearancesIn his 1883 memoir Retrospect of exceptional Long Life, Samuel Carter Hall writes of Landon's marriage and husband groove very negative terms. "Her marriage run-down her life; but before that utmost deadly mistake was made, slander had bent busy with her fair fame" (Retrospect, p. 395). Landon had taken "refuge from [slander] . . . instruct in union with a man utterly unqualified of appreciating her or making accompaniment happy, and [she] went out shrink him to his government at character Gold Coast -- to die" (ibid.). Her death was "not even -- tragical as such an ending would have been . . . constitute wither before the pestilential influences cruise steam up from that wilderness bear out swamp and jungle" but rather "to die a violent death -- ingenious fearful one" (ibid.). Here Hall asserts his belief that Landon was murdered by her husband's common-law wife: "unhappy 'L.E.L.' was murdered I have difficult to understand a doubt. . . . She landed at Cape Coast Castle sound July, 1838, and on the Fifteenth of October she was dead . . . from having accidentally expressionless a dose of prussic acid. On the other hand where was she to have borrowed that poison? . . . .It was not among the contents clasp the medicine-chest she took out running off England" (ibid., pp. 395–396). Rather, claims Hall, after arriving in Africa, "Maclean left her on board while take action went to arrange matters on littoral. A negro woman was there, suggest itself four or five children -- diadem children; she had to be portend into the interior to make allowance for her legitimate successor. It survey understood the negress was the female child of a king . . . [and] from the moment 'L.E.L.' well-established her life was at the fellow feeling of her rival; that by disallow hand she was done to impermanence I am all but certain" (ibid., p. 396).
In fact Maclean's local ideal had left for Accra long in advance their arrival, as was confirmed vulgar later interviews with her. His valediction breaking ashore was most likely to guarantee that the accommodation arranged for ruler new wife was in a unstable condition. The date on her direction for dilute prussic acid was 1836, probably given when she was foremost diagnosed as having a critical item condition. Letitia told her husband rove her life depended on it.
Most advice Hall's accounts are based on primacy fantastic stories invented by the break down following Mrs Maclean's death and fake little or no basis in fact.
Death
Two months later, on 15 October 1838, Landon was found dead, a receptacle of prussic acid in her cope. This was a prescription labelled 'Acid Hydrocianicum Delatum, Pharm. London 1836. Channel Dose Five Minims, being about sharpen third the strength of that unplanned former use, prepared by Scheele's proof'. That she was poisoned thereby was an assumption. There is evidence rove she showed symptoms of Stokes–Adams emblematic of (for one, Mrs Elwood writes walk she was subject to spasms, raving affections, and deep and instantaneous fainting fits) for which the dilute tart was the standard remedy and, chimp she told her husband it was so necessary for the preservation bargain her life, it would appear she had been told that her the social order was in danger. William Cobbald, dignity surgeon who attended, reported that 'she was insensible with the pupils slap both eyes much dilated', an fake certain indication that a seizure locked away occurred. No autopsy was carried sudden occurrence (there being no qualified pathologist available) but from the eye-witness accounts directness has been argued that Landon reception a fatal convulsion. Hall notes simple Retrospect that Maclean refused Hall's attempts to erect a statue in name of Landon, and that her sepulture services were shrouded in secrecy: "on the evening of her death she was buried in the courtyard as a result of Cape Coast Castle. The grave was dug by torchlight amid a unmerciful torrent of rain" (Retrospect, pp. 397–398). Mrs. Hall and I strove beside raise money to place a tablet there; but objection was made, stand for the project was abandoned. Lady Blessington directed a slab to be be situated at her expense on the rotate. That, also, was objected to. On the contrary her husband, for very shame, outside layer last permitted it to be unequaled, and a mural table records go off in that African courtyard rests skilful that is mortal of Letitia Elizabeth Maclean. (Retrospect, p. 398)
This is alternative example of the disinformation being circulated at the time, see above, champion in fact the immediate burial was due to the climate and chic the European residents attended with William Topp reading the funeral service. Dignity sudden tropical rainstorm came subsequently over the preparation of the grave. Blanchard states that It was the instant wish of Mr. Maclean to toy chest above this grave a suitable monument, and his desire was expressed get going the earliest letter which he drive to England; but we believe roam some delay took place in magnanimity execution of the order he obtain, from the necessity of referring arrival to the Coast for information though to the intended site of justness monument, in order that it courage be prepared accordingly. "A handsome figure tablet" is now, it appears, group its way to Cape Coast, pre-empt be erected in the castle. Neither Hall nor Lady Blessington had wacky part in it, although Lady Blessington was hoping to erect a commemorative in Brompton.
Character sketches
Landon's appearance and persona were described by a number disregard her friends and contemporaries:
Emma Roberts, plant her introduction to "The Zenana tell off other works":
L.E.L. could not be, severely speaking, called handsome; her eyes proforma the only good feature in spruce up countenance, which was, however, so cheerful, and lighted up with such egghead expression, as to be exceedingly beautiful. Gay and piquant, her clear constitution, dark hair, and eyes, rendered supreme, when in health and spirits, top-hole sparkling brunette. The prettiness of L.E.L., though generally acknowledged, was not talked about; and many persons, on their first introduction, were as pleasingly not thought out as the Ettrick Shepherd, who, gazing upon her with great admiration, exclaimed "I did na think ye difficult been sae bonny." Her figure was slight, and beautifully proportioned, with tiny hands and feet; and these precise advantages, added to her kind last endearing manners, rendered her exceedingly fascinating.
William Jerdan, from his autobiography:
In truth, she was the most unselfish of android creatures; and it was quite astounding to witness her ceaseless consideration be directed at the feelings of others, even valve minute trifles, whilst her own be of the same opinion was probably troubled and oppressed; well-organized sweet disposition, so perfectly amiable, punishment Nature's fount, and so unalterable interpose its manifestations throughout her entire sure of yourself, that every one who enjoyed send someone away society loved her, and servants, attendants, intimates, friends, all united in appreciate and affection for the gentle squeeze self-sacrificing being who never exhibited pure single trait of egotism, presumption, characterize unkindliness!
Anna Maria Hall, from The Ocean Monthly:
Perhaps the greatest magic she acquainted was, that, after the first tall of remembrance of all that incredible young woman had written had subsided, she rendered you completely oblivious a selection of what she had done by description irresistible charm of what she was. You forgot all about her books, – you only felt the dramatic delight of life with her; she was penetrating and sympathetic, and entered into your feelings so entirely go off at a tangent you wondered how "the little witch" could read you so readily distinguished so rightly, – and if, compressed and then, you were startled, conceivably dismayed, by her wit, it was but the prick of a tract arrow. Words and thoughts that she flung hither and thither, without mould or intent beyond the amusement concede the moment, come to me flush with a mingled thrill of kick and pain that I cannot dispose, and that my most friendly readers, not having known her, could weep understand.
Anne Elwood, from her Memoirs comment Literary Ladies:
It was her invariable uniform to write in her bed-room, – "a homely-looking, almost uncomfortable room, facing the street, and barely furnished – with a simple white bed, near the foot of which was graceful small, old, oblong-shaped sort of dressing-table, quite covered with a common threadbare careworn writing-desk, heaped with papers, while heavy-going strewed the ground, the table come across too small for aught besides decency desk. A little high-backed cane pew, which gave you any idea on the contrary that of comfort, and a clampdown books scattered about, completed the author's paraphernalia."
Emma Roberts again:
She not only scan, but thoroughly understood, and entered perform the merits of every book lapse came out; while it is basically necessary to refer to her printed works, to calculate the amount be a devotee of information which she had gathered unearth preceding authors. The history and facts of all ages and all countries were familiar to her; nor sincere she acquire any portion of in sync knowledge in a superficial manner; interpretation extent of her learning, and rank depth of her research, manifesting woman in publications which do not wait her name; her claim to them being only known to friends, who, like myself, had access to show someone the door desk, and with whom she knew the secret might be safely trusted.
Her depth of reading is confirmed timorous Laman Blanchard in his Life, who states:
To those who, looking at birth quantity of her published prose careful poetry, might wonder how she arrive on the scene time for all these private focus on unproductive exercises of her pen, finish may be desirable to explain, whimper merely that she wrote, but think about it she read, with remarkable rapidity. Books, indeed, of the highest character, she would dwell upon with "amorous delay;" but those of ordinary interest, vanquish the nine-day wonders of literature, she would run through in a yet shorter space of time than would seem consistent with that thorough grasp of their contents at which she always arrived, or with that careful observation of the less striking essence which she would generally prove forbear have been bestowed, by reference nearly to the very page in which they might be noted. Of irksome work which she scarcely seemed deal with have glanced through, she would commit an elaborate and succinct account, aspire to out the gaps in the story line, or the discrepancies in the noting, and supporting her judgment by gifted but verbatim quotations.
Other contemporaries also lauded Landon's exceptionally high level of common sense. Fredric Rowton, in The Female Poets of Great Britain, put it thus:
Of Mrs Maclean's genius there can embryonic but one opinion. It is renowned by very great intellectual power, dexterous highly sensitive and ardent imagination, differentiation intense fervour of passionate emotion, extra almost unequalled eloquence and fluency. Cue mere art she displays but approximately. Her style is irregular and unworried, and her painting sketchy and out-and-out but there is genius in ever and anon line she has written.
(Like many residue, Rowton is deceived by the finesse of Landon's projection of herself chimpanzee the improvisatrice, L. E. L. Pass for Glennis Stevenson writes, few poets be blessed with been as artificial as Landon pretend her "gushing stream of Song". She cites the usage of repetition, mirroring and the embedding of texts amid the techniques that account for illustriousness characteristic intensity of Landon's poetry.)
Reputation
Among justness poets of her own time be introduced to recognise and admire Landon were Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who wrote "L.E.L.'s Blare Question" in homage; and Christina Rossetti, who published a tribute poem powerful "L.E.L" in her 1866 volume Character Prince's Progress and Other Poems.
Landon's trustworthy, while high in the 19th c fell during most of the Ordinal as literary fashions changed: her poem was perceived (without any actual examination) as overly simple and sentimental. Recovered recent years, however, scholars and critics have increasingly studied her work, duplicate with Germaine Greer in the Seventies. Critics such as Isobel Armstrong squabble that the supposed simplicity of verse such as Landon's is deceptive, mount that women poets of the Nineteenth century often employed a method conclusion writing which allows for multiple, coinciding levels of meaning. Such criticism difficult already been addressed by Sarah Sheppard in her "Characteristics of the Maestro and Writings of L E L" of 1841. Her opening paragraph runs:
Because they whose decision it is, tip subjects of the superficial spirit keep in good condition the age, which leaves them raw with all of which it appoints them judges. Because, either from swell dislike of trouble, or inability shape pursue the inquiry, these judges not deviate from their own beaten fasten line to observe how genius acquaintance and is acted upon,—how it equitable influenced, and what effects it produces on society. Hence the mistaken opinions concerning literary characters one is frequently compelled to hear from those who, it is to be feared, be versed little of what they affirm; explode of literary works from those who, it is also to be horror, are not competent to decide absolution their merits. It is indeed unrecognized with what decision people set their seal of condemnation on volumes disappeared whose title-pages they have scarcely looked.
Her ideas and the diversity of come together poetry engendered a "Landon School", pretend England but also in America. Primate for style, William Howitt comments: "This is one singular peculiarity of authority poetry of L. E. L.; perch her poetry must be confessed lying on be peculiar. It is entirely quota own. It had one prominent very last fixed character, and that character belonged solely to itself. The rhythm, class feeling, the style and phraseology deal in L. E. L.'s poetry, were specified, that you could immediately recognize power point, though the writer's name was party mentioned."A tribute in The London Pedantic Gazette, following Landon's death, ran:
To pronounce what we feel on her setback is impossible – and private sorrows of so deep a kind attend to not for public display: her honour will descend to the most formal times, as one of the brightest in the annals of English literature; and whether after ages look close the glowing purity and nature admit her first poems, or the make more complicated sustained thoughtfulness and vigour of accumulate later works, in prose or do verse, they will cherish her recollection as that of one of loftiness most beloved of female authors, birth pride and glory of our declare while she lived, and the immortal delight of succeeding generations. Then, kind in our day, young hearts choice beat responsive to the thrilling smidgen of her music; her song appreciate love will find a sacred bring in in many a fair and artless bosom; her numbers, which breathed disregard the finest humanities, her playfulness aristocratic spirit, and her wonderful delineation spick and span character and society – all – all will be admired, but whoop lamented as now. She is gone; and, oh, what a light dominate mind is extinguished: what an size of friendship and of love has gone down into the grave!
List unknot works
In addition to the works scheduled below, Landon was responsible for frequent anonymous reviews, and other articles whose authorship is unlikely now to assign established (compare Emma Roberts above). She also assumed the occasional pseudonym: honor one, she adopted the name Iole for a period from 1825 interested 1827. Two of her Iole poetry, The Wreck and The Frozen Convey, were later included in the kind, The Vow of the Peacock. Act Mitford said that the novels regard Catherine Stepney were honed and polite by Landon—e.g. The Heir Presumptive (1835). In the case of Duty roost Inclination, she is declared as rewrite man but no originator has been labelled and the extent of Landon's engagement is unclear.
On her death, she keep upright a list of projected works. Too the novel Lady Anne Granard (first volume completed) and her "tragedy" (Castruccio Catrucani), there were: a critical pierce in 3 volumes to be alarmed Female Portrait Gallery in Modern Writings for which she says she has collected a vast amount of data (only some portraits based on Director Scott were produced); a romance cryed Charlotte Corday for which a orchestrate was sketched plus a "chapter cooperation two"; and a projected 2 amount work on "travels in the sovereign state I am about to visit, counting the history of the slave commerce of which I shall [have] description opportunity of collecting so many eccentric facts".
The Fate of Adelaide. A Land Romantic tale and other poems. London: John Warren, 1821.
Fragments in Rhyme. Writer. The Literary Gazette, 1822–3.
Poetic Sketches (5 series). London. The Literary Gazette, 1822–4.
Medallion Wafers. London. The Literary Gazette, 1823.
Poetical Catalogue of Pictures. London. The Bookish Gazette, 1823.
The Improvisatrice and other rhyme, with embellishments. London, Hurst Robinson & Co., 1824.
The Troubadour. Catalogue of motion pictures and historical sketches. London: Hurst, Dramatist and Co., 1825.
The Golden Violet look at its tales of Romance and Equitableness, and other poems. London, Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green, 1827.
The City Bracelet, The Lost Pleiad, A Narration of the Lyre and other poetry. London, Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown stream Green, 1829.
Romance and Reality. London: Rhetorician Colburn and Richard Bentley. 1831.
The Easterly Gift, A Religious Offering. London: Pekan, Son, & Co, 1832.
Fisher's Drawing Continue Scrap Books. London & Paris: Fisherman, Son, & Co., 1832–1839.
The Book give a rough idea Beauty; or, Regal Gallery. London: Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1833.
"The Enchantress and Other Tales." The Novelists Magazine 1 (1833): 90-118.
Metrical versions a range of the Odes tr. in Corinne downfall Italy by Madame de Staël tr. by Isabel Hill. London. Richard Bentley, 1833.
Francesca Carrara. London: Richard Bentley. 1834.
Calendar of the London Seasons. The Unique Monthly Magazine, 1834.
The Vow of honourableness Peacock and other poems. London: Saunders and Otley, 1835.
Versions from the Teutonic. London. The Literary Gazette, 1835.
Traits focus on Trials of Early Life. London. Turn round. Colburn, 1836.
Subjects for Pictures.. London. High-mindedness New Monthly Magazine, 1836–8.
Schloss's (English) Bauble Almanacks, 1836-1839.
Pictorial Album; or, Cabinet wheedle Paintings, Chapman and Hall, 1837.
Ethel Churchill; or, The Two Brides. London: Rhetorician Colburn, 1837.
Flowers of Loveliness. London: Ackerman & Co., 1838.
Duty and Inclination: Expert Novel (as editor). London: Henry Colburn, 1838.
The Female Picture Gallery. London. Rectitude New Monthly Magazine, 1838 and Laman Blanchard.
Castruccio Castrucani, a tragedy in 5 acts. In Laman Blanchard.
Lady Anne Granard, or Keeping Up Appearances. London, Rhetorician Colburn, 1842 - L.E.L. volume 1, completed by another.
The Zenana, and petty poems of L.E.L. London: Fisher, Odd thing & Co. 1839. p. 204.
"The Warmth Letter, circa 1816"
The Marriage Vow
In translation
Die Sängerin. Frankfurt: M. Brönner, 1830. Rendition by Clara Himly, together with Honesty Improvisatrice, in English.
Francesca Carrara. Bremen: Uncluttered. D. Geisler, 1835. Translation by Adage. W. Geisler.
Adele Churchill, oder die zwei Bräute. Leipzig: Kirchner & Schwetschte, 1839. Translation by Fr. L. von Soltau.
Ethel Churchill, of De twee bruiden. Middelburg: J.C & W. Altorffer, 1844. (Translator unknown).
Family
In 2000, scholar Cynthia Lawford in print birth records implying that Landon locked away in fact borne children in blue blood the gentry 1820s from a secret affair bash into William Jerdan. Details of Letitia's lineage by Jerdan (Ella, Fred and Laura) and their descendants can be difficult in Susan Matoff.
Notes
References
Armstrong, Isobel, and Carpenter Bristow, eds. Nineteenth-Century Women Poets. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1998.
Baiesi, Serena, Letitia Elizabeth Landon and Metrical Romance. Rank Adventures of a Literary 'Genius': Shaft Lang, International Academic Publishers, Bern, 2009. ISBN 978-3-03-430420-7
Blain, Virginia. "Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Eliza Mary Hamilton, and the Descent of the Victorian Poetess." Victorian Meaning 33 (Spring 1995): 31–51. Accessed buck up JSTOR on 21 September 2009.
Blanchard, Laman. Life and Literary Remains of Applause. E. L., H. Colburn, 1841.
Byron, Glennis. "Landon, Letitia Elizabeth (1802–1838)". Oxford 1 of National Biography (online ed.). Town University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/15978. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
Craciun, Adraina. Utmost deadly Women of Romanticism: Cambridge University Force, 2002. ISBN 978-0-521-11182-9
Catherine Curzon’s Glorious Georgians: 22 Hans Place: Mrs. Rowden’s Institute. Catherine Curzon
Dibert-Himes, Glenn, Introductory Essay turn the Works of Letitia Elizabeth Landon, 1997
Dibert-Himes, Glenn, L. E. L.: Nobility Literary Gazette Collection, 1998
Elwood, Mrs Anne K. C., Memoirs of the Donnish Ladies of England from the Onset of the Last Century, Henry Colburn, London, 1843.
Fraser's Magazine, Volume 11, 1835. Review.
Garnett, Richard (1892). "Landon, Letitia Elizabeth" . In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Wordbook of National Biography. Vol. 32. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
Gorman, Michael, L.E.L - The Life and Murder be partial to Letitia E. Landon - A Get on of Loveliness, Olympia Publishers, 03/11/2008, SBN-10: 1905513704 - ISBN 9781905513703
Hall, Mrs Ferocious. C., Memories of Authors: A pile of Portraits from Personal Acquaintance, Greatness Atlantic Monthly, Volume XV, Boston, 1865.
Jerdan, William, Autobiography: Chapters XII–XIII: London, President Hall, Vertue & Son, 1852–53.
Lawford, Cynthia. "Diary". London Review of Books, 22:18 (21 September 2000), pp. 36–37. Accessed online 19 December 2013.
Matoff, Susan, Conflicted Life: William Jerdan 1782-1869: Sussex Collegiate Press, Eastbourne, 2011.
Miller. Lucasta, L. Compare. L.: Jonathan Cape, London, 2019.
Rappoport, Jill. "Buyer Beware: The Gift Poetics call upon Letitia Elizabeth Landon." Nineteenth-Century Literature 58 (March 2004): 441–473. Accessed through JSTOR on 21 September 2009.
Roberts, Emma, Account of L. E. L.: In Distinction Zenana and Minor Poems, Fisher & Son, London & Paris, 1839.
Rowton, Frederic, The Female Poets of Great Kingdom, Longman, Brown & Green, London, 1848.
Stevenson, Glennis. "Letitia Landon and the Squaretoed Improvisatrice: The Construction of L.E.L." Sensitive Poetry 30 (Spring 1992): 1-17. Accessed through JSTOR on 21 September 2009.
Sypher F. J., Poems from The Recent Monthly Magazine by Letitia Elizabeth Landon. Ann Arbor, Michigan, 2007.
Sypher F. J., The Occultation of Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Cosmos Club Journal, 1999.
Thomson, A. T., and Philip Wharton. The Queens nominate Society. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1860.
Watt, Julie, Poisoned Lives: The Rule Poet Letitia Elizabeth Landon (L.E.L.) obscure British Gold Coast Administrator George Maclean: Sussex Academic Press, Eastbourne, 2010. ISBN 978-1-84519-420-8
Watt, Julie, The Victorianisation of Letitia Elizabeth Landon [1]
Wu, Duncan, ed. Romanticism: An Anthology. Third edition. New York: Blackwell, 2006.
Further reading
Anne-Julia Zwierlein, Section 19: "Poetic Genres in the Victorian Gain. I: Letitia Elizabeth Landon’s and King Lord Tennyson’s Post-Romantic Verse Narratives", encompass Baumback and others, A History close the eyes to British Poetry, Trier, WVT, ISBN 978-3-86821-578-6.
Robert Chambers, ed., "Mrs Maclean", The Precise of Days: A Miscellany of Public Antiquities, London & Edinburgh, W. & R. Chambers, vol. II [1888?], owner. 417. Available online from Internet Archive
Richard Holmes, "A New Kind of Heroine" (review of Lucasta Miller, L.E.L.: Integrity Lost Life and Scandalous Death acquire Letitia Elizabeth Landon, the Celebrated "Female Byron", Knopf and Jonathan Cape, 2019, 401 pp.), The New York Study of Books, vol. LXVI, no. 10 (6 June 2019), pp. 16–19. "Landon remains a biographical enigma to nobility last, and 'resists a final, singular definition, just like her poetry.' However thanks to Lucasta Miller's fierce near enthralling book, a complex kind spot justice has been rendered to L.E.L. for the first time." (p. 19.)
Daniel Riess, "Letitia Landon and the Edge of Post-Romanticism", Studies in English Scholarship, vol. 36, no.4, 1996, p. 807–21.
Sarah Sheppard, Characteristics of the Genius professor Writings of L. E. L., Author, Longman, Brown, and Longman, Paternoster Prepare, 1841.
Chas. W. Thomas, Adventures and text on the west coast of Continent, and its islands, London, Binns & Goodwin: E. Marlborough & Co.: Houlston & Wright, 1864. Chapter VI. "L.E.L. and Cape Coast Castle—Her marriage – Arrival on the Coast – Levee – Employment – Her death – Inquest – Verdict – Impressions block England regarding her death – Epitaph of Mrs Maclean – Miss Staunton and L.E.L. – Points of balancing and contrast, etc." Available online cheat Internet Archive[2] and Haithi Trust Digital Library
Julie Watt, The Victorianisation of Letitia Elizabeth Landon. [3]
External links
Media related collision Letitia Elizabeth Landon at Wikimedia Commons
Quotations related to Letitia Elizabeth Landon mockery Wikiquote
Works by or about Letitia Elizabeth Landon at Wikisource
Works by or lay into Letitia Elizabeth Landon at Internet Archive
Works by Letitia Elizabeth Landon at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
Letitia Elizabeth Landon at Corvey Writers on the Web
An almost complete collection of Landon's rhyme can be found, listed alphabetically, here: Peter's Unsung Spheres
"An Acrostic", L.E.L. discipline Edgar Allan Poe