Letitia Elizabeth Landon (L.E.L.)
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (L.E.L.)


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Letitia Elizabeth Landon (L.E.L.) 
 
Date (from)(Date to)Event
14 August 1802 Born (Chelsea).
11 March 1820 First poem, 'Rome' published in Literary Gazette, edited by William Jerdan, her mentor.
1824 Wrote 'The Improvisatrice', first major poem.
1831 Wrote 'Romance and Reality', first novel.
October 1836 Met George Maclean.
7 June 1838 Married George Maclean (q.v.)
5 July 1838 Sailed for Cape Coast Castle.
1 August 1838 Arrived at Cape Coast Castle.
15 October 1838 Died, possibly from a self-adminstered overdose of prussic acid.
According to the DNB: 'As a poetess Letitia Elizabeth Landon can only rank as a gifted improvisatrice. She had too little culture, too little discipline, too low an ideal of her art, to produce anything of very great value.' Her work is now considered objectionably sentimental. Around 1830 she was briefly considered a serious literary portent, but this was less the case by the time she met Maclean. Although Metcalfe makes clear that he was no longer in love with her when they married, there is little ground for the later melodramatic speculations about her life - and death - at Cape Coast Castle.
Life of Letitia Elizabeth LandonExternal link ('Romantic Circles' article)


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