Letitia+Elizabeth+Landon

// “Letty had always loved reading. She learnt her letters when she was very young, from an invalid friend of her mother’s who scattered them over the carpet round her sofa and made Letty give the name of each as she picked it up, a charming game” (Ashton // //15).//

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (14 August, 1802) was an English writer better known from “her literary signature” L.E.L (McGann and Riess 11). She was born in Chelsea at 25 Hans Place, a home suited for “the upper middle class,” to John (partner in Adair & Co., an army agency) and Catherine Landon (Stephenson 22, McGann and Riess 11). She was the eldest of three chil dren; her siblings were Whittington Henry Landon and Elizabeth Jane Landon, who died when she was thirteen years old (Stephenson 22, McGann and Riess 11).

// “Like every other young poet in the year 1818 it was her dream and ambition to write like Lord Byron” (Ashton 20). //

Landon received education from Frances Rowden’s school before being taken under her cousin, Elizabeth Landon’s wing (McGann and Riess 11). She started writing verse in her youth, which was first published in //The Literary Gazette// in 1820 when William Jerdan became the editor (McGann and Riess 11-2). She wrote “poetical sketches,” “poems on the subject of paintings and mass-produced engravings of contemporary artists,” which became useful for her later involvement with gift books and annuals (McGann and Riess 12). In July 1824 she published a book of poems, //The Improvisatrice and Other Poems//, which went through six editions in one year, followed by //The Troubadour, Catalogue of Pictures and// //Historical Sketches// in 1825, which went through four. Though her earnings and popularity were quickly rising, her father’s death in 1824 set her back by forcing her to support herself and her family, which led to her appointment by Jerdan as the //Gazette//’s head literary reviewer (McGann and Riess 12). This promotion triggered the slew of slander headed Landon’s way. She suspected that her “lack of social standing” was to blame (McGann and Riess 13). However, rumors of a love affair and three illegitimate children were a likelier cause (Lawford 36).



In 1826, Landon published //The Golden Violet, with Its Tales of Romance and Chivalry, and Other Poems//, followed by //The Venetian Bracelet, The Lost Pleiad, A History of the Lyre, and Other Poems,// in 1829. These two volumes were considerably more mature works. She also contributed poems to gift books and annuals like //The Keepsake// - “the literary venue that had rapidly grown throughout the 1820s and 1830s to become a key mode of verse production” (McGann and Riess 13). In addition to poetry, she contributed lyrics to several publications as well as wrote short stories and “Silver Fork” novels (McGann and Riess 13).

Landon was engaged to John Forster, the //Examiner// ’s literary reviewer, toward the end of 1834. This led to further rumors about her character and involvement with Jerdan, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Daniel Maclise and William Maginn. Landon subsequently ended her engagement to Forster (McGann and Riess 14).

// “John Forster was told so many vile stories about her that he could not help but believe them and the engagement was broken off. I believe he repented it afterwards, but she would not forgive him. She said that she could never marry a man who did not trust her fully” (Ashton 229). //

In 1835 Landon published //The Vow of the Peacock and Other Poems//, her sixth poetry volume, and //Traits and Trials of Early Life// in 1836, the year she met George Maclean, governor of Cape Coast, to whom she was engaged to by the year-end. Misunderstandings due to the rumors about Landon’s character and Maclean’s supposed African mistress led to complications in their relationship, but they made amends and married in 1838 before leaving for present Ghana (McGann and Riess 14). However, two months later, Landon died under mysterious circumstances. She was found “holding an empty bottle of diluted prussic (hydrocyanic) acid” (McGann and Riess 14-5), which led to speculation about possible (poetic) suicide and even murder (McGann and Riess 15). “The remains of L.E.L. were interred within the wall inclosing the [Cape Coast] castle; and a marble tablet was erected to her memory by her husband, bearing” a Latin inscription (L.E.L., //Poetical Works// xvii).

// “She declined into a legend, a mystery, the young poetess, the Lost Pleiad of whom she herself had written, who had twinkled so brightly at first in the heavens, but then had been obscured and darkened, had fallen to earth and married a mortal as in the old Greek story and had come to a mysteriously unhappy end” (Ashton 318). //

L.E.L. is considered “one of the most relentlessly Romantic of all the poets writing during the early nineteenth century” (Stephenson 1). However, her poetic self seems to have been the by-product of her milieu, feedback on her poetry, and circulating gossip; or “a calculated case of self-projection” (Stephenson 3-4). Landon wrote in a memoir, “the vein of melancholy which pervades her poetry was a complete contrast to the vivacity and playfulness of her manners in private life” (L.E.L., //Poetical Works// xviii). However, this marks a contrast to her friends’ opinion of the deceased Landon – that the Landon they knew “was indeed the melancholy L.E.L. of the poems,” which made it seem that “in life she was playing a role” (Stephenson 7). This disconnect marks Landon’s identity as an improvisatrice and as the poetess, L.E.L. In the nineteenth century, the “tendency to identify the poet with the poem was always charged with particular authority when the writer was a woman” (Stephenson 6), which led Landon to promote herself as L.E.L. in order to secure success as a female writer (Stephenson 8).

// “I can only say, that for a woman, whose influence and whose sphere must be in the affections, what subject can be more fitting than one which it is her peculiar province to refine, spiritualize, and exalt?” (L.E.L., "Preface" vi) //

However, “the poet’s and the woman’s heart” were yet unkindly judged and “unkindly treated” (L.E.L., "Felicia Hemans" 56, 57), which explains why even the Brontës, highly influenced by Landon, wrote under pseudonyms (Miller 42). As a poetess who spoke from the heart, Landon encouraged her readers to question the “’authentic’ self that lies beneath the social mask” because “a woman is forced to assume the mask that distorts and eventually destroys the self” (Stephenson 17).

// “She was at peace in her sea-prison and the flagstone over her, which was also a gravestone, had nothing upon it but the letters of her maiden name, the long-forgotten initials L.E.L.” (Ashton 318). //

Notes

1. Quotations by Helen Ashton are not factual. They are subjective histories, the imagined circumstances of the life of Letitia Elizabeth Landon, used in this article to frame the myth and legend of L.E.L.

Works Cited

Ashton, Helen. //Letty Landon.// London: Collins, 1951. Lawford, Cynthia. "Diary." //London Review of Books// 22.18 (2000): 36-37. Web. 8 Apr. 2015. L. E. L. (Letitia Elizabeth Landon). //Poetical Works of Letitia Elizabeth Landon: In Two Volumes.// London: Longmans, Green, 1867. L. E. L. (Letitia Elizabeth Landon). "Preface." //The Venetian bracelet: the lost pleiad: a history of the lyre and other poems//. London: Printed for Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green, 1829. //Nineteenth Century Collections Online//. Web. 7 Apr. 2015. L. E. L. (Letitia Elizabeth Landon). “Felicia Hemans.” //The Broadview Anthology of Victorian Poetry and Poetic Theory//. Ed. Thomas J Collins and Vivienne J. Rundle. Ontario: Broadview Press, 2005. 44-5. Print. McGann, Jerome, and Daniel Riess, eds. //Letitia Elizabeth Landon: Selected Writings.// Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 1997. Miller, Lucasta. “Sex And The Woman Writer: Charlotte Brontë And The Cautionary Tale of Letitia Elizabeth Landon.” //Brontë Studies// 36.1 (20100): 38-43. Web. 7 Apr. 2015. Stephenson, Glennis. //Letitia Landon: The woman behind L.E.L.// Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995.