L.E.L.: The Lost Life and Scandalous Death of Letitia Elizabeth Landon, the Celebrated “Female Byron”
May 2019 · Random House
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416
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About this ebook
A famous poet, a mysterious death and a story stranger than fiction. - this is the lost life and mytserious death of the 'Female Byron'
On 15 October 1838, the body of a thirty-six-year-old woman was found in Cape Coast Castle, West Africa, a bottle of prussic acid in her hand. She was one of the most famous English poets of her day: Letitia Elizabeth Landon, known by her initials 'L.E.L.'
What was she doing in Africa? Was her death an accident? Had she committed suicide, or even been murdered?
To her contemporaries, she was an icon, hailed as the 'female Byron'. However, she was also a woman with secrets, the mother of three illegitimate children whose existence was subsequently wiped from the record. After her death, she became the subject of a cover-up which this book unravels, excavating with it a whole lost literary culture.
FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE BRONTE MYTH
On 15 October 1838, the body of a thirty-six-year-old woman was found in Cape Coast Castle, West Africa, a bottle of prussic acid in her hand. She was one of the most famous English poets of her day: Letitia Elizabeth Landon, known by her initials 'L.E.L.'
What was she doing in Africa? Was her death an accident? Had she committed suicide, or even been murdered?
To her contemporaries, she was an icon, hailed as the 'female Byron'. However, she was also a woman with secrets, the mother of three illegitimate children whose existence was subsequently wiped from the record. After her death, she became the subject of a cover-up which this book unravels, excavating with it a whole lost literary culture.
FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE BRONTE MYTH
About the author
Lucasta Miller is a biographer and critic, whose articles have appeared in a wide number of publications, especially the Guardian. She is the author of two previous books on nineteenth-century literature, The Brontë Myth and L.E.L.: the Lost Life and Mysterious Death of the 'Female Byron', and is currently an Honorary Research Associate at University College, London and a Royal Literary Fund Fellow.
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