top of page

My intention is to collect as much of Letitia Landon's poetry here as I can, properly formatted.

It is sad that, even today, I cannot post to a poetry website that is able to display poetry properly and I am grateful for a web-design that makes this possible.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

 

Thus wrote William Jerdan in his autobiography:

 

I found in L. E. L. a creature of another sphere, though with every fascination which could render her most loveable in our every-day world. The exquisite simplicity of childhood, the fine form of womanhood, the sweetest of dispositions, the utmost charm of unaffected manners, and, above all, an impassioned ideal and poetical temperament which absorbed her existence and held all else comparatively as nothing. The development of this Psyche-phenomenon was her life, and all that pertained to it. Her whole history realised the allegory, if it be an allegory, of Apuleius, as closely as if it had been invented to shape her course, with the exception of its fatal termination on earth—death instead of slumber; but let us hope only a different mode of raising her to that heaven where her prototype entered into the glories of immortality and the unalloyed raptures which are sought in vain in mortal communion. 

We love the bird we taught to sing;” 

 

The Poetry:

Please reload

Please reload

Please reload

THE IMPROVISATRICE AND OTHER POEMS

 

Here it is - one of the major landmarks of British literature. Exotic, erotic and esoteric, it ran rapidly to six editions. The shock of the new was never so much in evidence. So where is it now? The answer seems to lie in misrepresentation leading to misunderstanding. Landon wrote rapidly with little revision, so there are frequent errors of meter. However, this is consistent with her projection as an improvisatrice and, to that extent, the longer poems should be treated as live performances and enjoyed as such. They contain so much that is beautiful. 

 

This is a first major critique of Romanticism. It is a construct, right down to this title page, which deliberately outlines the form of a woman. It is through regarding her work as Romantic that she has been so misunderstood and misrepresented. She is more correctly classed as a Post-Romantic and the predecessor of Tennyson. I also see something almost Art Nouveau about her poetry with those wonderful curlicues of language that so inspired the Pre-Raphaelites. Maybe that puts things a little out of order, so I'll let the thought pass, although I find the term Poésie Nouveau rather attractive in Landon's case.

LETITIA'S CHILDREN - ELLA STUART, FRED STUART AND LAURA LANDON

 

I admit I didn't want to believe at first; it was kept so secret. Now I find the fact she was making love with William Jerdan makes her more complete as a woman and I'm sure she kept in touch with her offspring in their adoptive homes.

 

When John Forster failed to find fault in her in spite of 'every enquiry in his power', I suspect that she broke off the engagement not because he had mistrusted her but because she could not now tell him the truth. It seems equally likely that she did tell George Maclean, that being one possible reason for his hesitation. In George's own words, they were intimate following their first meeting and deeply in love. In spite of Letitia's tragic death, it is good to know that their attachment was never broken. It is also good that she still has descendants alive today.

 

HANS PLACE

 

This is No.22 where Letitia lived from 1826 to 1837. She rented the top right 'garret' from the Misses Lance, who ran a school down below. This was the school she had attended as a child for she was born at No.25 nearby. Presumably the rental agreement included all household maintenance, as there was insufficiant accomodation for a servant. Letitia ate her meals with the girls at the school. Her friend Emma Roberts was also a lodger here.

 

 

LETITIA'S DEATH

 

Letitia suffered from Stokes-Adams syndrome, the symptoms of which are: "Prior to an attack, a patient may become pale, their heart rhythm experiences a temporary pause, and collapse may follow. Normal periods of unconsciousness last approximately thirty seconds; if seizures are present, they will consist of twitching after 15–20 seconds. Breathing continues normally throughout the attack, and so on recovery the patient becomes flushed as the heart rapidly pumps the oxygenated blood from the pulmonary beds into a systemic circulation which has become dilated due to hypoxia."

The recommended remedy for this at that time was very dilute hydro-cyanic acid, which presumably stimulated the heart by attacking the stomach lining. This is what Letitia was attempting to use when she died but we do not know whether or not any had been taken. There is, in any case, no evidence whatsoever that she was poisoned thereby. Everything points to the occurance of a fatal attack.

The following prognosis suggests that she was unlikely to have lived much longer: "If undiagnosed (or untreated), Stokes–Adams attacks have a 50% mortality within a year of the first episode." No treatment was then available. She seems to have some idea of the seriousness of her condition because, when her husband threatened to take away her medication, she told him that her life depended upon it. Yet her projected work in hand suggests she was hoping to live for some time yet and showed she had no interest in acting out the fate of her fictitious poetesses. So much damage was done to the the reputations of both Letitia and her loving husband, George Maclean, through false and malicious stories of murder and suicide that it is surely high time these were stamped on and reparations made. Unfortunately it is difficult to spread the truth as long as such misrepresentations remain the stock of national biographies.

 

The following from  the obituary in The New Yorker illustrates the reaction to her death:

It is with feelings of sincere regret we have to announce to our readers the death of Mrs. MACLEAN, wife to the Governor of Cape Coast Castle, which most suddenly and unexpectedly occurred in that settlement on the 15th of October. The Courier of Tuesday says : 

“'The feeling with which we record this mournful intelligence at the commencement of a new year, will be respected when we state that only yesterday morning we received from Mrs. Maclean a most affecting and interesting letter, which sets forth at once with the animating assertion, ‘ I am very well, and very happy.’ ‘ The only regret,’ she proceeds to say, ‘ the only regret (the emerald ring that I fling into the dark sea of life to propitiate Fate) is the constant sorrow I feel whenever I think of those whose kindness is so deeply treasured.’ She says that her residence at the castle of Cape Coast is ‘ like living in the Arabian Nights—looking out upon palm and cocoa-nut trees.’ And she then enters into a light hearted and pleasant review of her housekeeping troubles, touching yams and plantains—and not less interesting account of her literary labors and prospects; intimating that the ship which brought the letter we quote, brought also the first volume of a novel, and the manuscript of another work to be published periodically. To the last, her friendly gossip is full of life, cheerfulness and hope. The next ship that sailed —how very, very soon afterward !-—brought to us the tidings of the sacrifice of that life, the memory of which should be dear to all who can appreciate poetry, and wit, and generosity, the refinements of taste and the kindly impulses of the heart, that makes human nature-and woman‘s nature especially—most worthy to be regarded with admiration and affection.”

 

 

FISHER'S DRAWING ROOM SCRAP BOOKS

 

Letitia acted as editor for these annuals for the years 1832 to 1839, the last being prepared before she left for Africa but only published after her death. These collections of multimedia productions, in which picture and poem complement each other, form one of the great achievements of British literature and it is a sad reflection on our present era that no edition is in print today. There also eight additional poems published in the 1840 annual, four in that for 1841 and an isolated instance in 1849. See below concerning the ordering given here.

 

 

LETITIA LANDON AND ART

 

Throughout her life, Letitia maintained an interest in the art of the day and her commentary begins with the ephemeral Medallion Wafers, which were artificial in every sense. She continued with the Pictorial Catalogue of Pictures in the Literary Gazette. None of these actually incorporate a reproduction: she expected her readers to keep up to date on such matters. The thrust of her poetry was to illustrate the artificiality of art, indeed the artificiality of poetry also. Later, we find her illustrative verse in many of the gift books then in vogue, especially in Fisher's Scrap Books mentioned above. Her final venture turns things on their head: we have her 'Subjects for Pictures', suggesting that the artifice of poetry can be turned into the artifice of art.

I have included here as many images as I can find but is important to remember that these are not illustrations, the verses being commentaries on what is shown and what is not.

SCHLOSS'S ENGLISH BIJOU ALMANACK'S

This was another of Letitia's later projects, which I have seen reported, were written as a gift. These tiny volumes, which came complete with a magnifier were embellished with her verses from 1836 to 1839. In the 1838 edition, John A Heraud, Esq. provided the following tribute:

To L. E. L.

Sappho of a polished age! 

    Loves and graces sweetly fling 

Chastened spendours o'er thy page, 

    Like moonlight on a fairy's wing. 

Feelings fresh as morning’s dews, 

    Breathings gentle as the May's, 

Verses soft as violet’s hues,

    Once sported in thy happy lays.

 

Sad is now thy plaintive strain,

    Melancholy is thy mood—

Bring us back thy youth again!

    For Cheerfulness befits the good.

Yet, if thou be sad —‘tis well!

    If we weep,—‘tis not in vain! 

Sighs, attuned to Sappho's shell, 

    Allure us into love with pain !

CONTEXT

 

The arrangement in alphabetical order is far from ideal but it is a beginning and I have tried in all cases to give the date of publication. The mixture of the various stages of Landon't development as a poet does in any case provide variety. Where the poem is specifically about a work of art, I have tried to provide an illustration but unfortunatley this is not always possible.

bottom of page