She also supported his preferment and later (in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1838) dedicated her poetical illustration Captain Cook to him, in recollection of their domestic childhood adventures together.

[5] According to Mrs A. T. Thomson, Jerdan took notice of the young Letitia Landon when he saw her coming down the street, "trundling a hoop with one hand, and holding in the other a book of poems, of which she was catching a glimpse between the agitating course of her evolutions".

[14] Bulwer Lytton wrote that, as a young college student, he and his classmates would rush every Saturday afternoon for the Literary Gazette, [with] an impatient anxiety to hasten at once to that corner of the sheet which contained the three magical letters L.E.L.

[15]Landon served as the Gazette's chief reviewer as she continued to write poetry and she soon began to display an interest in art, which she projected into her poetic productions.

This was closely followed in the Literary Gazette by a Poetical Catalogue of Pictures, which was to be 'continued occasionally' and which in fact continued unremarked into 1824, the year her landmark volume, The Improvisatrice; and Other Poems was published.

In The Troubadour she included a lament for her late father, who died in 1824, thus forcing her to write to support her family;[16] Some contemporaries saw this profit-motive as detrimental to the quality of Landon's work:[16] a woman was not supposed to be a professional writer.

how would she seize on some interesting characteristic in the painting or engraving before her, and inspire it with new life, till that pictured scene spread before you in bright association with some touching history or spirit-stirring poem!

's appreciation of painting, like that of music, was intellectual rather than mechanical,—belonging to the combinations rather than to the details; she loved the poetical effects and suggestive influences of the Arts, although caring not for their mere technicalities.

Next she was responsible for the whole of Heath's Book of Beauty, 1833, her most self-consciously Byronic volume, which opens with The Enchantress in which she creates a 'Promethean, distinctly Luciferan, model of poetic identity and self-creation'.

The History of a Child from this volume may draw on the surroundings of her childhood but the circumstances of the story are so unlike the known facts of her early life that it can scarcely be considered as autobiographical.

[29] In October 1836, Landon met George Maclean, governor of the Gold Coast (now Ghana), at a dinner party given by Matthew Forster, and the two began a relationship.

the high and sterling qualities of her lover's character, his philanthropic and unceasing endeavours to improve the condition of the natives of Africa; the noble manner in which he interfered to prevent the horrid waste of human life by the barbarian princes in his neighbourhood; and the chivalric energy with which he strove to put an end to the slave-trade.

Possessing, in her estimation, merits of the highest order, the influence which he gained over her promised, in the opinion of those who were best acquainted with the docility of her temper, and her ready acquiescence with the wishes of those she loved, to ensure lasting happiness.In early July, the couple sailed for Cape Coast, where they arrived on 16 August 1838.

[5] During the short time she had in Africa, Landon continued her work on The Female Portrait Gallery, covering Walter Scott's principal heroines, and completed the first volume of a new novel, Lady Anne Granard, or Keeping Up Appearances.

(Retrospect, p. 398) This is another example of the disinformation being circulated at the time, see above, and in fact the immediate burial was due to the climate and all the European residents attended with William Topp reading the funeral service.

The prettiness of L.E.L., though generally acknowledged, was not talked about; and many persons, on their first introduction, were as pleasingly surprised as the Ettrick Shepherd, who, gazing upon her with great admiration, exclaimed "I did na think ye had been sae bonny."

Her figure was slight, and beautifully proportioned, with little hands and feet; and these personal advantages, added to her kind and endearing manners, rendered her exceedingly fascinating.William Jerdan, from his autobiography:[37] In truth, she was the most unselfish of human creatures; and it was quite extraordinary to witness her ceaseless consideration for the feelings of others, even in minute trifles, whilst her own mind was probably troubled and oppressed; a sweet disposition, so perfectly amiable, from Nature's fount, and so unalterable in its manifestations throughout her entire life, that every one who enjoyed her society loved her, and servants, companions, intimates, friends, all united in esteem and affection for the gentle and self-sacrificing being who never exhibited a single trait of egotism, presumption, or unkindliness!Anna Maria Hall, from The Atlantic Monthly:[38] Perhaps the greatest magic she exercised was, that, after the first rush of remembrance of all that wonderful young woman had written had subsided, she rendered you completely oblivious of what she had done by the irresistible charm of what she was.

You forgot all about her books, – you only felt the intense delight of life with her; she was penetrating and sympathetic, and entered into your feelings so entirely that you wondered how "the little witch" could read you so readily and so rightly, – and if, now and then, you were startled, perhaps dismayed, by her wit, it was but the prick of a diamond arrow.

Words and thoughts that she flung hither and thither, without design or intent beyond the amusement of the moment, come to me still with a mingled thrill of pleasure and pain that I cannot describe, and that my most friendly readers, not having known her, could not understand.Anne Elwood, from her Memoirs of Literary Ladies:[39] It was her invariable habit to write in her bed-room, – "a homely-looking, almost uncomfortable room, fronting the street, and barely furnished – with a simple white bed, at the foot of which was a small, old, oblong-shaped sort of dressing-table, quite covered with a common worn writing-desk, heaped with papers, while some strewed the ground, the table being too small for aught besides the desk.

"Emma Roberts again:[30] She not only read, but thoroughly understood, and entered into the merits of every book that came out; while it is merely necessary to refer to her printed works, to calculate the amount of information which she had gathered from preceding authors.

The history and literature of all ages and all countries were familiar to her; nor did she acquire any portion of her knowledge in a superficial manner; the extent of her learning, and the depth of her research, manifesting themselves in publications which do not bear her name; her claim to them being only known to friends, who, like myself, had access to her desk, and with whom she knew the secret might be safely trusted.Her depth of reading is confirmed by Laman Blanchard in his Life, who states:[40] To those who, looking at the quantity of her published prose and poetry, might wonder how she found time for all these private and unproductive exercises of her pen, it may be desirable to explain, not merely that she wrote, but that she read, with remarkable rapidity.

Books, indeed, of the highest character, she would dwell upon with "amorous delay;" but those of ordinary interest, or the nine-day wonders of literature, she would run through in a much shorter space of time than would seem consistent with that thorough understanding of their contents at which she always arrived, or with that accurate observation of the less striking features which she would generally prove to have been bestowed, by reference almost to the very page in which they might be noted.

Of some work which she scarcely seemed to have glanced through, she would give an elaborate and succinct account, pointing out the gaps in the plot, or the discrepancies in the characters, and supporting her judgment by all but verbatim quotations.Other contemporaries also praised Landon's exceptionally high level of intelligence.

She said it from the sea, The English minstrel in her minstrelsy, While under brighter skies than erst she knew Her heart grew dark, and groped as the blind, To touch, across the waves, friends left behind – "Do you think of me as I think of you?"

It is indeed strange with what decision people set their seal of condemnation on volumes beyond whose title-pages they have scarcely looked.In recent years, scholars and critics have increasingly studied her work, beginning with Germaine Greer[45] in the 1970s.

Critics such as Isobel Armstrong argue that the supposed simplicity of poetry such as Landon's is deceptive, and that women poets of the 19th century often employed a method of writing which allows for multiple, concurrent levels of meaning.

"[49] A tribute in The Literary Gazette, following Landon's death, ran: To express what we feel on her loss is impossible – and private sorrows of so deep a kind are not for public display: her name will descend to the most distant times, as one of the brightest in the annals of English literature; and whether after ages look at the glowing purity and nature of her first poems, or the more sustained thoughtfulness and vigour of her later works, in prose or in verse, they will cherish her memory as that of one of the most beloved of female authors, the pride and glory of our country while she lived, and the undying delight of succeeding generations.

Then, as in our day, young hearts will beat responsive to the thrilling touch of her music; her song of love will find a sacred home in many a fair and ingenuous bosom; her numbers, which breathed of the finest humanities, her playfulness of spirit, and her wonderful delineation of character and society – all – all will be admired, but not lamented as now.

She is gone; and, oh, what a light of mind is extinguished: what an amount of friendship and of love has gone down into the grave[50]In addition to the works listed below, Landon was responsible for numerous anonymous reviews, and other articles whose authorship is unlikely now to be established (compare Emma Roberts above).

[54] In 2000, scholar Cynthia Lawford published birth records implying that Landon had in fact borne children in the 1820s from a secret affair with William Jerdan.