The Poetry of Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Letitia Elizabeth Landon was born on August 14, 1802 in Chelsea, London. A precocious child, she had her first poem published is 1820 using the single ‘L’ as her marker. The following year her first volume appeared and sold well. She published a further two poems that same year with just the initials “L. E. L.” It provided the basis for much intrigue. She became the chief reviewer of the Gazette and published her second collection, The Improvisatrice, in 1824. Her reputation as a poet diminished until fairly recently; her work felt to be simplistic and too plainly constructed. However, when put into context, it is more rightly seen as masterful on many levels and meanings, as was needed for those more moral times.