Early career: 1820–1834 An agricultural depression caused the Landon family to move back to London in 1815. There, John Landon met
William Jerdan, editor of
The Literary Gazette. 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". Jerdan later described her ideas as "original and extraordinary". He encouraged Landon's poetic endeavours, and her first poem was published under the single initial "L" in the
Gazette in 1820, when Landon was 18. The following year, with financial support from her grandmother, Landon published a book of poetry,
The Fate of Adelaide, under her full name. The book met with little critical notice, but sold well; Landon, however, received no profits, since the publisher shortly went out of business. The same month that
The Fate of Adelaide appeared, Landon published two poems under the initials "L.E.L." in the
Gazette; these poems, and the initials under which they were published, attracted much discussion and speculation. As contemporary critic
Laman Blanchard put it, the initials L.E.L. "speedily became a signature of magical interest and curiosity".
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. And all of us praised the verse, and all of us guessed at the author. We soon learned it was a female, and our admiration was doubled, and our conjectures tripled. Landon served as the
Gazettes 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. She began, in innovative fashion, with a series on
Medallion Wafers, which were commercially produced highly decorative letter seals. 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. A further group of these poems was published in 1825 in her next volume,
The Troubadour, as
Poetical Sketches of Modern Pictures. In The Troubadour she included a lament for her late father, who died in 1824, thus forcing her to write to support her family; Some contemporaries saw this profit-motive as detrimental to the quality of Landon's work: a woman was not supposed to be a professional writer. Also, by 1826, Landon's reputation began to suffer as rumours circulated that she had had affairs or secretly borne children. However, her further volumes of poetry continued to be favourably reviewed, these being
The Golden Violet with its Tales of Romance and Chivalry and Other Poems (1827) and
The Venetian Bracelet, The Lost Pleiad, A History of the Lyre, and Other Poems (1829). During these years she became known as the 'female Byron'. The new trend of annual gift books provided her with new opportunities for continuing her engagement with art through combinations of an engraved artwork and what she came to call 'a poetical illustration'. In the 1830s she became a highly valued artist in this field, included amongst her work, most of the poetry for Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Books from 1832 through to 1839. Sarah Sheppard describes this work thus: 'How did pictures ever seem to speak to her soul! 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! L.E.L.'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.' In the words of Glenn T. Hines, 'What L.E.L.'s readers appreciated in her creations was that "new life" that she brought to her subject. Her imaginative re-castings produced intellectual pleasure for her audience. The wonderful characteristic of L.E.L.'s writings, which her readers recognized, was the author's special creative capacity to bring new meanings to her audience.' Landon continued to publish poetry, and published her first work of prose in 1831 with her first novel,
Romance and Reality. The following year, she produced her only volume of religious poetry,
The Easter Gift, again as illustrations to engravings of artwork. 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'. She returned to the long poem with
The Zenana in the Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1834 and gave the 1835 Scrap Book a sting in the tale with
The Fairy of the Fountains, Landon's version of the
Melusine legend displaying 'the aesthetic dilemma of the woman poet who is exiled not once like the male poet, but twice'. 1834 also saw the publication of her second novel,
Francesca Carrara, of which one reviewer commented 'A sterner goddess never presided over the destinies of a novel'. In July that year Landon visited Paris with a friend, Miss Turin, who was unfortunately taken ill, restricting Landon's activities. However, amongst those she met were
Heinrich Heine,
Prosper Mérimée,
Chateaubriand and
Madame Tastu.
Engagement John Forster: 1835–1836 In 1835, Landon became engaged to
John Forster. Forster became aware of rumours regarding Landon's sexual activity, and asked her to refute them. Landon responded that Forster should "make every inquiry in [his] power", which Forster did; after he pronounced himself satisfied, however, Landon broke off their engagement. To him, she wrote: The more I think, the more I feel I ought not – I can not – allow you to unite yourself with one accused of – I can not write it. The mere suspicion is dreadful as death. Were it stated as a fact, that might be disproved. Were it a difficulty of any other kind, I might say, Look back at every action of my life, ask every friend I have. But what answer can I give ...? I feel that to give up all idea of a near and dear connection is as much my duty to myself as to you.... Privately, Landon stated that she would never marry a man who had mistrusted her. In a letter to Bulwer Lytton, she wrote that "if his future protection is to harass and humiliate me as much as his present – God keep me from it ... I cannot get over the entire want of delicacy to me which could repeat such slander to myself." A further volume of poetry,
The Vow of the Peacock, was published in 1835 and, in 1836, a volume of stories and poetry for children,
Traits and Trials of Early Life.
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.
Later career During the 1830s, Landon's poetry became more thoughtful and mature. Some of her best poems appeared in
The New Monthly Magazine culminating in the series,
Subjects for Pictures, with their elaborate rhyming patterns. These are in a sense a reversal of her earlier poetical illustrations of existing pictures. Also in that magazine is the set,
Three Extracts from the Diary of a Week and here, she expresses her aim in opening lines, which, in Sypher's words 'could stand as a preface to much of her poetry'. A record of the inward world, whose facts Are thoughts—and feelings—fears, and hopes, and dreams. There are some days that might outmeasure years— Days that obliterate the past, and make The future of the colour which they cast. A day may be a destiny; for life Lives in but little—but that little teems With some one chance, the balance of all time: A look—a word—and we are wholly changed. We marvel at ourselves—we would deny That which is working in the hidden soul; But the heart knows and trembles at the truth: On such these records linger. In 1837, Landon published another novel,
Ethel Churchill, and began to explore new forms in which to express her literary talent. One of these was her dramatic
tragedy,
Castruccio Castracani, which represents a culmination of her development of the metrical romance, both in its form and content. Already, she had experimented with verses for ''Schloss's Bijou Almanacks
, which measured 3/4 by 1/2 inch and were to be read with a magnifier. She also negotiated with Heath for the publication in the future of a series of Female Portraits
of characters from literature. Her final endeavour was Lady Anne Granard (or Keeping up Appearances)'', a lighter novel, but her work on this at Cape Coast was cut short. == Later life ==