L.E.L.
The Lost Life and Mysterious Death of the ‘Female Byron’Select a format:
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Summary
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
Reviews
In her biography of L.E.L., Lucasta Miller's stellar research blows two centuries of accumulated dust off a phenomenon worth unearthing... This book takes biography to a new level.
Lyndall Gordon, New Statesman
