L.E.L.
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28Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin
29Sotheby’s, London
30© Victoria and Albert Museum, London
31Chronicle/Alamy
32General Register Office, HMPO, London
33Chronicle/Alamy
34London Stereoscopic Company/Getty Images
35Hulton Archive/Getty Images
All other images courtesy of the author.
Insert Illustrations
1The Very Reverend Dr Whittington Landon, Dean of Exeter, portrait by an unknown artist. Reproduced by permission of the Dean and Chapter of Exeter Cathedral
2Mrs Siddons Reading in a Grotto, attributed to Richard Cosway, c. 1810. Scarborough Museums Trust/Scarborough Art Gallery
3An Elegant Establishment for Young Ladies, by Edward Francis Burney, c. 1805. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
4Fashion plate from Ackermann’s Repository, ser. 2, vol. 7, March 1819. Author’s collection
5William Jerdan, portrait by Daniel Maclise, 1830. © National Portrait Gallery, London
6L’Improvistrice, by Henry William Pickersgill, 1823. Sotheby’s, London
7Lord Byron in Albanian Dress, by Thomas Phillips, 1813. © National Portrait Gallery, London
8Letitia Landon, engraving after a portrait by Henry William Pickersgill, 1825. Frontispiece to William Jerdan, The Autobiography of William Jerdan, vol. 3, 1852–53
9 Madame Vestris as Don Giovanni, by William Appleton, 1824–31. Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library
10The Minstrel of Chamouni, by Henry William Pickersgill, c. 1829. Benthall Hall, Shropshire/National Trust Photographic Library/Bridgeman Images
11Rosina Bulwer Lytton, engraving after a portrait by Alfred Edward Chalon, 1852. Lebrecht Music & Arts/Alamy
12Edward Bulwer Lytton, portrait by Henry William Pickersgill, c. 1831. © National Portrait Gallery, London
13Anna Maria Hall, portrait by Daniel Maclise, 1833. Reproduced by kind permission of the Olive Matthews Collection, Chertsey Museum. Photo: John Chase Photography
14Ella Stuart, photographed in later life. Courtesy of Michael Gorman
15Fiftieth Wedding Anniversary card for Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Carter Hall, 1874. © National Portrait Gallery, London
16Letitia Landon, portrait by Daniel Maclise, 1833. © The Trustees of the British Museum
17John Forster, portrait by Daniel Maclise, 1830. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
18Letitia Landon in equestrian dress, portrait by Daniel Maclise, undated. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
19Self-portrait by Daniel Maclise, after 1829. Sotheby’s, London
20William Maginn, portrait by Daniel Maclise, 1830. © National Portrait Gallery, London
21The Disenchantment of Bottom, by Daniel Maclise, 1832. Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut/Roy Miles Fine Paintings/Bridgeman Images
22Henrietta Sykes and her family in medieval dress, portrait by Daniel Maclise, 1837. By courtesy of Sir John Sykes, BT
23 Governor George Maclean, portrait by an unknown artist, c. 1836–38. Private collection. Photo: Nick McGowan-Lowe
24Silver centerpiece by Garrard’s, commissioned for Governor Maclean, 1836. Private collection. Photo: Nick McGowan-Lowe
25Cape Coast Castle, Ghana. Courtesy of the author
26Letitia Landon, unfinished portrait by Thomas Sully, 1838. Private collection
27Letitia Landon, plaster medallion by Henry Weekes. Private collection
More worldly than godly: Letitita’s paternal uncle Whittington Landon, dean of Exeter and provost of Worcester College, Oxford.
The great actress Sarah Siddons was an old friend of Letitia’s maternal grandmother.
A Regency girls’ school, such as the one at 22 Hans Place that Letitia attended from 1807, satirized by Edward Francis Burney (1805). Note the embryonic tragedienne to the right, the lascivious dancing master, the pupil eloping in the background, and the mechanical devices for improving posture.
Fashion plate from Ackermann’s Repository, 1819.
William Jerdan by Daniel Maclise, 1830. The “satyr-cannibal Literary Gazetteer” is portrayed reading by the light of a huge candle, which casts a sinister shadow on the wall; his right hand is clenched in a fist at his crotch.
L’Improvisatrice by H. W. Pickersgill, 1823, possibly an early “fancy portrait” of Letitita dressed as a Neapolitan poet-performer. It recalls the well-known portrait of Byron in Albanian dress (below) and also reflects contemporary fashion trends.
Byron in Albanian dress by Thomas Phillips, 1813.
Portrait of Letitia by H. W. Pickersgill, 1825. The original oil was first exhibited at the Royal Academy at the height of her fame. This engraving was commissioned for Jerdan’s autobiography in the 1850s.
Letitia’s “Spanish hat” suggested she was a female Don Juan, referencing the headgear worn by the racy actress Madame Vestris in the contemporary vaudeville hit Giovanni in London.
Letitia appeared again in masquerade costume in Pickersgill’s The Minstrel of Chamouni, first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1829 and then engraved for S. C. Hall’s annual The Amulet in 1830. The artist reprised elements from both L’Improvisatrice and the “Spanish hat” portrait, but made her look much more demure. “This minstrel is an imposter,” opined the London Magazine.
Bulwer’s wife, Rosina, by A. E. Chalon. Letitia flattered her as a supposed best friend, but they later fell out.
The novelist and future politician Edward Bulwer Lytton by Pickersgill, c. 1831. As a Cambridge undergraduate, he was excited by L.E.L.’s poetry before he even met her. Although they flirted in public, there is no evidence to support the rumor they were lovers.
A young Anna Maria Hall looking bold and sassy with unkempt hair in an informal portrait by Maclise made in 1833.
Letitia’s daughter Ella Stuart in later life. She grew up to defy the odds.
Smug marrieds: the “Pecksniff” Halls invite their dear friends to their fiftieth wedding anniversary. Although they began as rackety literary adventurers, they transformed themselves into models of Victorian propriety.
A hyper-feminine Letitia, portrayed by Maclise in a watercolor study for Fraser’s Magazine’s “Gallery of Illustrious Literary Characters,” 1833. According to Dante Gabriel Rossetti, “the kitten-like mignonnerie required is attained by an amusing excess of daintiness in the proportions.”
Portrait by Daniel Maclise of Letitia’s jejune fiancé John Forster, early 1830s. Their ill-fated engagement broke up after he discovered her sexual history.
This unpublished and undated drawing by Maclise presents Letitia as a sexy equestrienne, crop in hand. The mare’s long eyelashes mimic the rider’s, while her groom observes her from behind.
Self-portrait by Daniel Maclise, made around the time he knew Letitia. She was rumored to have made a pass at him, and may well have done so, if this likeness is anything to go by.
A “rattling mad Irishman”: William Maginn of Fraser’s Magazine, by his fellow Corkonian Maclise, 1830. Although he was accused of seducing Letitia, wine rather than women was his weakness.
The Disenchantment of Bottom by Maclise, 1832. The mesmeric ugliness of this Shakespearean painting reveals the artist’s insight into sexual illusion.
This picture by Maclise, 1837, portrays his married upper-class lover Lady Henrietta Sykes with her husband and children in medieval mode. He was more interested in impossible courtly love than in throwing in his lot with a female colleague such as Letitia.
Letitia’s husband, George Maclean, governor of Cape Coast Castle, probably commissioned in London in 1836–38 by Matthe
w Forster, the businessman who introduced them.
A crushingly opulent gift: the grand silver centerpiece commissioned from Garrard’s by the merchant committee for George Maclean in 1836.
View from Cape Coast Castle, October 10, 2017. “I like the perpetual dash on the rocks—,” Letitia wrote in one of her letters home; “one wave comes up after another, and is for ever dashed in pieces, like human hopes.”
Unfinished first sitting of Letitia made in 1838 by the great American portraitist Thomas Sully, shortly before her marriage.
Plaster medallion of Letitia by Henry Weekes, 1837. Her biographer Blanchard said it was a good likeness if only the shoulders had been a little higher.
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