Showing results by author "Letitia Elizabeth Landon" in All Categories

L. E. L. was the pen-name of Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802-1838), a “wild and wayward girl” whose outspoken poems about love, hypocrisy, social injustice, religions, and death were discussed and debated avidly during her short life, but lost favor afterwards as Victorian notions of propriety became dominant. This wide-ranging collection includes 60 of her most characteristic poems.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon was born on 14 August 1802 in Chelsea, London. A precocious child she had her first poem published is 1820 using a single ‘L’ as her marker. The following year her first volume appeared and sold well. She published a further two poems that same year with just the initials ‘L. E. L.' It provided the basis for much intrigue. She became the chief reviewer of the Gazette and published her second collection, The Improvisatrice, in 1824. By 1826, rumours began to circulate that she had had affairs.