“Need I say how anxious she is”: Letters, p. 5.
“troublesome”…“no resolution to go on”: Letters, p. 5.
“How happy I am!”: Letters, p. 8.
a long-lost branch: Sypher, A Biography, p. 16.
a fabled race: Featured passim in Anna Maria Porter’s novel The Knight of St John (1817), where they are described as heroic outcasts suffering from some vague congenital disorder; also as subject of a correspondence in The Gentleman’s Magazine (September 1819, p. 225, and October 1819, p. 326). Letitia’s reference to “the frightful goitres” etc., Romance and Reality, vol. 2, p. 123.
“From day to day and hour to hour”: AWJ, vol. 3, p. 169.
“ ’Twas my first”: [Thomson], “Memorials,” p. 183.
comic poem: LLR, p. 146.
“mystery of L.E.L.”…“devoted attachment”: AWJ, vol. 3, p. 170.
“Youth’s deep and passionate idolatry”: PLG, p. 33.
“passions” mere “pasteboard”: Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Mary Russell Mitford, vol. 1, p. 252. See also Knowles, Sensibility and Female Poetic Tradition, p. 134.
“to impress on the reader’s mind”: LLR, vol. 1, p. 38.
“emotional honesty”: Lawford, “Thou Shalt Bid Thy Fair Hands Rove.”
“Poetry always carries me out”: Letters, p. 168.
“the whole frame trembles”: L.E.L., Ethel Churchill, vol. 3, p. 196.
“We love the bird”: William Jerdan to Lady Blessington, January 5, 1839, BL Add. 43688F, ff. 64–65.
“a nightingale, who sits in darkness”: Shelley, Selected Poems and Prose, p. 657.
“And you took my young heart”: PLG, pp. 313–14.
“Dinner passed, and within an hour”: Jerdan, 1848 memoir, p. xi.
“mawkishness”: Keats, preface to Endymion (1818).
“Am Teetisch”: Heine, Werke, vol. 1, p. 84.
“St George’s Hospital, Hyde-Park Corner”: PLG, pp. 38–40.
Whittington went up to Oxford: He matriculated on March 8, 1823 (Alumni Oxoniensis, 1715–1886, vol. 3). Letitia’s poem “I must turn from this idol” was published on March 22. PLG, p. 131.
“Cockney” culture: See Dart, Metropolitan Art and Literature, 1810–1840: Cockney Adventures.
“rationalised or reformé”: L.E.L. to Mr. Richards, May 15, 1822, Letters, p. 10.
Isabella Jones: Roe, John Keats, p. 109.
male keepers of the flame: Barnard, “First Fruits or ‘First Blights.’ ”
“I have an utter aversion to Bluestockings”: Hazlitt, “Of Great and Little Things” (1821), Complete Works, vol. 8, p. 236.
“kneel down in the front of the box”: Roberts, A Memoir, p. 19.
“finest natural organ”: L.E.L., Romance and Reality, vol. 1, p. 61.
Sicilian fairy…“Venus of South America”: Matoff, Conflicted Life, p. 148.
Sarah Baartman: Hall, Macaulay and Son, pp. 66–67.
Elizabeth Barrett complained: Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Mary Russell Mitford, vol. 1, p. 252.
“runs over the grass”…“the death cup”: L.E.L., The Zenana, ed. Emma Roberts, pp. 48–50.
left him her gold watch: AWJ, vol. 3, p. 185.
Her estate went to Letitia: TNA, Prerogative Court of Canterbury and Related Probate Jurisdictions, Will Registers: Class: PROB 11; Piece: 1807.
We know from the baptismal record: London Metropolitan Archives, Church of England Parish Registers, 1754–1906, ref. no. 87/js/006.
no record of exactly when Ella was born: Matoff, Conflicted Life, pp. 604, 640.
“clouded births are seldom correctly dated”: Anna Maria Hall, A Woman’s Story, vol. 1, p. 138.
“Canterbury of all places”: The Sunday Times, March 5, 1826, third page (unpaginated).
“For the first two or three months”: Letters, p. 11.
who died of consumption, aged fourteen: Parish Records of St. George Hanover Square, September 15, 1825, London Metropolitan Archives, ref. no. DL/T/089/020.
“few things are to my taste more tiresome”: Letters, p. 13.
“Do you recall one autumn night”: PLG, p. 259.
the unusual seal she used: L.E.L. to Bernard Barton, September 1823, Letters, pp. 11–13, note.
“child / Of sorrow and of shame”: PLG, p. 142.
“a year” before she saw the proof sheets: “I never saw the MS till in proof-sheets a year afterwards, and I made no additions only verbal alterations,” Letitia told A. A. Watts in 1824. Letters, p. 18.
Pickersgill portrait of Letitia: LLR, p. 290.
Ackermann’s Repository: March 1, 1819, vol. 7, no. 39, plate between pp. 180 and 181.
instantly sold in exhibition: Graves, The Royal Academy of Arts, vol. 6, p. 142.
“less than five weeks”: Letters, p. 18.
“M.E.” and “L.E.L.” rubbed shoulders: LG, October 4, 1823, p. 635.
earned her living as a governess: Matoff records (Conflicted Life, p. 447) that Ella worked as a governess in Lord Normanby’s family in the 1840s.
“prosperous and happy journey”…“never be welcomed back”: Ibid.
CHAPTER 5 FAME
“Dutch improvisator”: LG, no. 321, March 15, 1823, p. 169.
“court poet, show-woman, adventuress”: Findlen, Italy’s Eighteenth Century, p. 122.
“a sort of mental masturbation”: Byron’s Letters and Journals, vol. 7, p. 225.
“My hand kept wandering on my lute”: L.E.L., The Improvisatrice, pp. 31–32.
“peculiarities of my own individual character”: Anon., Andrew of Padua, p. 68.
“Softly, softly”: Ibid., p. 186.
“blood was on her small snow feet”: L.E.L., The Improvisatrice, p. 66.
“rubbishy sentimentality”: Adam Roberts, in Wu, A Companion to Romanticism, p. 29.
Thomas Lovell Beddoes: Berns, The Ashgate Research Companion to Thomas Lovell Beddoes.
“As far as our poetical taste and critical judgment”: LG, no. 389, July 3, 1824, pp. 417–20.
“extraordinary poetic talents”: Ackermann’s Repository, 3rd series, vol. 4, August 1, 1824, p. 122.
“young Lady just out of her teens”…“vivid imagination”: Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. 94, July 1824, p. 61.
“There is…scarcely an image which is not connected”: New Monthly Magazine, vol. 12, no. 44, August 1, 1824, p. 365.
in the Parisian Globe: “The Improvisatrice,” Le Globe, September 15, 1824, p. 4. A further article, “L’Improvisatrice de Mlle. Letitia Landon,” appeared in Le Globe the following year (August 9, 1825, p. 737).
also published in America: By Monroe and Francis of Boston in 1825.
The so-called review: Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, August 1824, pp. 189–93.
“in those days of leo-hunting”: [Thomson], The Queens of Society, p. 171.
“litr’y abilities”: Devey, Life of Rosina Lady Lytton, p. 44.
“rank” and “opulence”: Letters, p. 28.
“the instant L.E.L. was known”: [Thomson], The Queens of Society, p. 173.
“Witty and conversant as she was”: William Howitt, Homes and Haunts, vol. 2, p. 438.
“stroke of electricity”: Anna Maria Hall, A Woman’s Story, vol. 2, p. 38.
“the society of her own sex”: [Thomson], The Queens of Society, p. 174.
“who had such a plethora of character and respectability”: Devey, Life of Rosina Lady Lytton, pp. 42–43.
“drest upon an idea”: [Thomson], “Memorials,” p. 88.
“air of merry scorn”…“sleeve”: Howitt, Homes and Haunts, vol. 2, p. 154.
“short sleeve made very full”: Acker
mann’s Repository, March 1824, p. 184.
a surviving lock of her dark hair: BL Add. MS, 43688; hair originally contained in folded paper (folio 69a) with note, in Lady Blessington’s hand, reading “The Hair of poor dear L.E.L.”
“by a crop curled in the neck à l’enfant”: L.E.L., Romance and Reality (one-vol. 1848 edition), p. 274.
“martyrdom of curls”: Letters, p. 42.
“Marry ma charmante rose”: L.E.L. to Rosina Wheeler, November 30, 1825, Letters, p. 21.
Caroline Lamb’s toy boy: Mitchell, Bulwer Lytton, pp. 13–14.
“only eighteen”…“a Dean’s daughter”: Quoted in Sypher, A Biography, p. 10.
“cast-off” mistress: Mitchell, Bulwer Lytton, p. 51.
sodomy with Disraeli: Ibid., p. 62.
“Mr Jerdan says”: Devey, Life of Rosina Lady Lytton, p. 142.
“witnessing the usual flirtation”: Quoted in Matoff, Conflicted Life, p. 255.
a fellow guest noted with distaste: Sadleir, Bulwer and His Wife: A Panorama, pp. 149, 422–23.
“I have been quite a round of dinner parties”: Letters, p. 21.
“Nothing could be more lively”: [Thomson], The Queens of Society, p. 174.
“quadrille” party: Letters, p. 18.
“made a modest and retiring young lady”: Quoted in Whitley, Art of England, p. 89.
Madame Vestris: Mandel, The Theatre of Don Juan, p. 399.
“When she was in the first flush of her fame”: Anna Maria Hall, “The Portraits of L.E.L.,” p. 3.
“Scarce possible it seem’d to be”: L.E.L. The Troubadour, p. 246.
“My page is wet with bitter tears”: Ibid., p. 252.
“surveillance”: Ibid., title page.
“endowed by nature with talents so far above”: Jerdan’s expansive review is spread across three consecutive issues of the Literary Gazette: no. 443, July 16, 1825, pp. 449–50; no. 444, pp. 469–70; no. 445, pp. 484–85.
Elsewhere, The Troubadour was well reviewed: Sypher, A Biography, pp. 60–70.
“sickly thoughts clothed in glittering language”: Westminster Review, April 1825, pp. 537–39.
drawing room: Croker, A Walk from London to Fulham, p. 47.
“ostensible wealth”…kitchen cooker: AWJ, vol. 4, p. 38.
“his house was ever open”: Lord Lennox, Celebrities I Have Known, vol. 2, p. 35.
running a wheelbarrow: Scott, The Poetical Works of L.E.L., Introduction.
£4,000 debt: Letter from William Jerdan to Edward Bulwer, December 23, 1830, Hertford Record Office, D/EK C/ 11/ 23.
“We are happy to be enabled to state”: The Sunday Times, March 5, 1826, third page (unpaginated).
“The Literary Jordan”: BL, General Reference Collection 1865.c.3 (166).
“so positive”: Letters, p. 211.
“What malignity begins”: LLR, vol. 1, p. 52.
“Unfortunately, the very unguardedness of her innocence”: Ibid.
“And I,—I felt immortal”: L.E.L., The Golden Violet (1827), p. 245.
CHAPTER 6 SHAME
“a reluctance which will at least ensure brevity”: LLR, vol. 1, p. 57.
“A well-known English Sappho”: The Sunday Times, March 5, 1826 (unpaginated).
“hushed up”: Austen, Mansfield Park, p. 409.
a letter to her friend Mrs. Thomson: LLR, vol. 1 pp. 53–56.
“girlish days”: LLR, vol. 1, p. 53.
“constant medical friend and advisor”: S. C. Hall, A Book of Memories, p. 266.
In 1810 he delivered the future novelist Elizabeth Gaskell: DNB entry on Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell.
compared the personal physician to a confessor priest: L.E.L., Ethel Churchill, vol. 3, p. 200.
“Already I see you a regular lioness”: Letters, p. 25.
glowing review of Mrs. Thomson’s book: LG, no. 485, May 6, 1826, pp. 273–75.
On Hypocrisy: LG, no. 517, December 16, 1826, p. 793.
“No one knows but myself”: LLR, vol. 1, p. 53.
“acquired so perceptible a degree of embonpoint”: “Quacks of the Day: William Jerdan,” The Wasp, no. 2, October 7, 1826, p. 22.
“L.E.L. (alias Letitia Languish)”: The Wasp, no. 3, October 14, 1826, p. 36.
“I had intended, my dear Mrs Thomson”: Letters, p. 29.
“Mr Ashwell”: Letters, p. 37.
a boarding school in Uxbridge: It was located at Belle House, had thirty-seven pupils, all boys, and was maintained by a schoolmaster named Joseph Ibert. TNA, 1841 Census, Uxbridge District, Piece: 655; Book: 10; Folio: 51: page: 11.
In his autobiography: AWJ, vol. 1, p. 22.
Jerdan “exported” him to the West Indies…“going on prosperously in Trinidad”: Family correspondence quoted in Matoff, Conflicted Life, pp. 488–89.
William and Frances’s youngest daughter: Georgiana’s death notice: Morning Post, April 20, 1826.
George Hogarth wrote to Jerdan: Matoff, Conflicted Life, p. 219.
“ingenious allegory”: Jerdan, “The Sleepless Woman,” The Club-Book, vol. 2, p. 54.
“Leaves grow green to fall”: PLG, p. 352.
“When we can find nothing better to entertain readers with”: LG, December 30, 1827, p. 828.
dismissed lawyers as pests: LG, December 30, 1827, pp. 817–18.
“the slightest idea of my original sin”: Letters, p. 30.
“We have past divers rural days”: Letters, p. 32.
“A heavy misfortune befell me”: Letters, p. 34.
“utter cold worldliness”: Letters, p. 31.
“feelings (if I have any)”: Letters, p. 30.
“Why should I shed a single tear”: PLG, p. 349.
“if such a novelty as a lover”: Letters, p. 36.
“the author of Rouge et Noir”: Letters, p. 32.
“when in doubt, lead trump”: Letters, p. 96.
“with that au fait air”: Read, Rouge et Noir, p. 8.
“there is no man”: De Quincey’s Works, p. 261.
“by the pound”: Letters, p. 33.
“what art thou, fame?”: L.E.L., The Golden Violet, p. 236.
“Feelings whose truth is all their worth”: Ibid., p. 239.
“to draw the portrait and trace the changes”: Ibid., p. 242.
“I have scorned myself”: Ibid., p. 260.
“deep and dangerous delight”: Ibid., p. 258.
“the opiate of my heart”…“I do not hope a sunshine burst of fame”: Ibid., p. 259.
“When we…remember that this is the third work in the course of two years”: LG, no. 517, December 16, 1826, pp. 785–87.
“I look forward to the decided advantage”: Letters, p. 37.
“when I arrive at 22”: Letters, p. 37.
“homely-looking”: LLR, vol. 1, p. 79.
“I cannot describe to you how my heart sank”: Tales and Sketches by Letitia Elizabeth Landon, p. 77.
her will: TNA, Prerogative Court of Canterbury and Related Probate Jurisdictions: Will Registers; Class: PROB 11; Piece: 1807.
“Mr Jerdan is awful!”: Devey, Letters of the Late Edward Bulmer, p. 196.
“As long as they will be hypocrites”: Quoted in Peakman, Lascivious Bodies, p. 94.
“Miss Landon is amusing”: Devey, Letters of the Late Edward Bulmer, p. 195.
“Let such a person’s popularity only decline”: Grant, The Great Metropolis, p. 256.
“poet of fashion”: The Sunday Times, March 5, 1826.
“I think you might most advantageously communicate”: Letters, p. 220.
Letitia appeared as Perdita: Roberts, A Memoir, p. 25.
Letitia’s visiting c
ard survives: William St Clair collection.
“her usual regards never sank skin-deep”: [Thomson], “Memorials,” p. 182.
“I avoided L.E.L.”: Disraeli, Letters, vol. 1, p. 247.
Tom Moore sat next to her: Journal of Thomas Moore, vol. 3, p. 1305.
Mary Russell Mitford later took umbrage: Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Mary Russell Mitford, vol. 1, p. 253, note 9.
CHAPTER 7 LYRE LIAR
“Beauty is truth”: Keats, Complete Poems, p. 346.
“O say not that truth does not dwell”: “The Poet,” PLG, p. 31.
“A History of the Lyre”: L.E.L., The Venetian Bracelet, p. 95.
“have left me somewhat in the situation of the prince in the fairy tale”: Ibid., Preface, p. vi.
“In reading many of her poems”: The Athenaeum, no. 105, October 28, 1829, pp. 669–70, and no. 106, November 4, 1829, pp. 688–90.
“Lines of Life”: L.E.L., The Venetian Bracelet, pp. 265–74.
She is viscerally nauseated: Woolf, Orlando, pp. 167–68.
“blight in her springtime”: S. C. Hall, “Memories of Authors of the Age,” p. 89.
“ ‘bright ornament’ of Truth”…“secretiveness”…“bane”: S. C. Hall, A Book of Memories, pp. 263–64.
“unctuous solemnity”: Julian Hawthorne, Hawthorne and His Circle, ch. 11.
he soon found employment: Vincent, Ugo Foscolo, ch. 10.
her grandmother’s funeral: S. C. Hall, A Book of Memories, p. 270.
“I would gladly say more”: Ibid., p. 285.
“sufficient rank”…“pure”: Sadleir, Blessington-d’Orsay, p. 200.
“looked earnestly down at her”: S. C. Hall, A Book of Memories, p. 275.
“Miss Landon is a pretty girl”: Collected Letters of James Hogg, vol. 3, p. 27.
The Minstrel of Chamouni: Graves, The Royal Academy of Arts, vol. 6, p. 145; the painting was no. 147 in the 1828 Royal Academy exhibition.
on display in their ancestral seat: The picture is currently miscataloged as a portrait of the artist’s daughter Emily Maria (1837–1924). See www.britishportraits.org.uk/events/annual-seminar-2017/ for a podcast of my presentation on Pickersgill’s images of Letitia Landon at the Understanding British Portraits Annual Seminar of 2017 at the National Portrait Gallery: The protean poetess: portraiture, masquerade, and celebrity in the post-Byronic era.
L.E.L. Page 39
