L. E. L.

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Standard Name: L. E. L.
Birth Name: Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Pseudonym: L.
Pseudonym: L. E. L.
Used Form: LEL
Used Form: L.E.L.
LEL was one of the most prolific and popular authors of her day. She produced an immense corpus of poetry, several works of fiction (the first a particularly striking silver fork novel), and considerable review and editorial work. Her work more than any other popularized the persona of the lovelorn, doomed poetess in the early nineteenth century.
Black and white photograph of a three-quarter length drawing of L.E.L. in chalk and pencil by Daniel Maclise, early 1830s. She is wearing a white dress whose wasp waist is accentuated by a broad belt, large billowing skirt and upper sleeves, and high standaway collar. Her dark, shining hair is centre-parted and pulled back, with tiny kiss-curls below and a tall, plaited arrangement above. Her expression is languishing. National Portrait Gallery.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Anthologization Barbara Hofland
BH seems to have remained saleable for a long time, since The Gift of Friendship . . . with contributions by . . . Mrs. Hofland appeared as late as 1877. Others included were Mary Howitt
Dedications Maria Jane Jewsbury
In the Drawing-Room Scrapbook for 1839 MJJ published a poem to the annual's former editor: To L.E.L after meeting her for the first time.
Boyle, Andrew. An Index to the Annuals. Andrew Boyle, 1967.
154
Dedications Emma Roberts
This work she dedicated to L. E. L. , as a faint tribute to her genius.
Blain, Virginia, Patricia Clements, and Isobel Grundy, editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford, 1990.
It was reprinted in London two years later, with the final three words dropped from the title.
Education Frances Ridley Havergal
FRH was an avid reader within limits: her selection of material was mostly dictated by her religious interests. After receiving a copy of a book about literary women she commented, The sad sketch of L. E. L.
Family and Intimate relationships Violet Fane
VF 's love life was a frequent subject of London gossip. According to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, she was regarded, in her own time, as a late-Victorian Letitia Landon .
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray, Brian Harrison, and Lawrence Goldman, editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
Apart from...
Family and Intimate relationships Anna Eliza Bray
Ann Arrow Kempe was described by her daughter as shy and tender, with a love of music. L. E. L. remembered her as a charming, kind woman who admired poetry and demonstrated a sincere affection...
Family and Intimate relationships John Forster
In 1834 JF became engaged to the popular poet L.E.L . Their nuptials were soon called off by L.E.L when rumours that she had had an affair with William Jerdan resurfaced. Forster pressed for a...
Fictionalization Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
For centuries LMWM has been interpreted and re-interpreted, judged less often as writer than as an exemplar of the unacceptable female. Her fame and/or notoriety flourished during her lifetime, and posthumous publications kept it alive...
Friends, Associates Mary Shelley
MS also met the leading women writers of her later years: Jane Porter , Catherine Gore , Caroline Norton , and LEL . She was friendly, too, with Thomas Moore , Prosper Mérimée , Washington Irving
Friends, Associates Maria Jane Jewsbury
Determined to be a writer, MJJ actively sought literary society. Her other literary friends included author and editor Samuel Laman Blanchard , dramatist James Robinson Planché , the Rev. George Robert Gleig , and Sir Walter Scott
Friends, Associates Anna Eliza Bray
This brief marriage brought Anna Eliza a number of literary friendships: with Sir Walter Scott , Amelia Opie , Letitia Elizabeth Landon , John Murray , Robert Southey , and later with Southey's second wife,...
Friends, Associates Anna Eliza Bray
Owing to her nervousness and delicate health AEB did not socialize much; her literary friends were few though deeply valued, including L. E. L. , John Murray , Owen Rees , and Anna Maria Hall
Friends, Associates Catherine Gore
CG was acquainted with a number of important literary figures. Before leaving London for the Continent she attended an assembly given by Rosina Bulwer-Lytton to which Disraeli , Lady Morgan , and Letitia Landon also...
Friends, Associates Jane Loudon
In London after her father's death, Jane Webb was a frequent visitor to the family of John Martin the artist. His wife, Susan Martin, had special motherly friendship for Jane, shared to some degree...
Friends, Associates Rosina Bulwer Lytton, Baroness Lytton
Their mother was living in Paris at this time, and Rosina lived in London with her uncle Sir John Doyle (latterly without her sister, who joined their mother in Paris). She reputedly had an unusual...

Timeline

January 1833
The annual Heath's Book of Beauty began publication; the first number was edited by L. E. L.