“the nights are so hot”: Letters, p. 194.
“At first I thought it rather hard”: L.E.L. to Bulwer, quoted in Sypher, A Biography, appendix 1, p. 288.
“The people appear very intelligent”: Ibid., pp. 288–89.
“You may suppose what a resource writing is”: Letters, p. 189.
“payment to poor L.E.L. for her 60 pages of verse”: Journal of Thomas Moore, vol. 5, p. 2027.
“If my literary success does but continue”: Letters, p. 189.
“My brother who has lately acquired the habit”: L.E.L. to Bulwer, c. May 1838, quoted in Sypher, A Biography, p. 286.
“You cannot think the complete seclusion”: Letters, p. 186.
“The solitude is absolute”: Letters, p. 189.
“My solitude is absolute”: L.E.L. to Bulwer, quoted in Sypher, A Biography, appendix 1, p. 288.
“At seven Mr Maclean comes”: Letters, p. 193.
“The solitude, except an occasional dinner”: Letters, p. 198.
“godsend”: L.E.L. to Matthew Forster, October 12, 1838, quoted in Sypher, A Biography, appendix 1, p. 291.
“most civil, obliging person”: Letters, p. 194.
Prussic, or hydrocyanic, acid: On the history of prussic acid, see Earles, “The Introduction of Hydrocyanic Acid into Medicine.”
“no intention of suicide at present”: P. B. Shelley to Edward Trelawny, June 18, 1822, Trelawny, Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron, p. 100.
self-slaughterer’s drug of choice: Dickens, Pickwick Papers, p. 28.
suicide by prussic acid and laudanum: The Times, “Coroner’s Inquests,” December 23, 1839, p. 7.
“spasms and hysterical affections”…“prescribed for her by her medical attendant in London”: LLR, vol. 1, p. 213.
His enthusiastic experimental use of it: Granville, Historical and Practical Treatise, p. 388. (Thomson’s full letter to Granville describing his use of prussic acid on patients is printed on pp. 371–90.)
“extremely useful as an external application”: Ibid., p. 375.
“a remedy of great efficacy”: Thomson, The London Dispensatory, pp. 657–58, 749.
had never completed his own medical studies: DNB.
“pompous in his phraseology”: Clarke, Autobiographical Recollections of the Medical Profession, p. 305.
“if properly diluted and dispensed”: Earles, “The Introduction of Hydrocyanic Acid into Medicine,” p. 312.
“certainly is a very powerful sedative”: Thomson, The London Dispensatory, p. 749.
“We all know”: The Times, January 22, 1839, p. 5.
“the aid of narcotics and that violent spasms”: Madden, Countess of Blessington, vol. 2, p. 70.
“stimulate her energies”: Burton, Wanderings in West Africa, vol. 2, p. 81.
“there was no author or authoress”: Hayter, “The Laudanum Bottle Loomed Large,” p. 37.
“Love’s Last Lesson”: The Golden Violet, p. 299.
“Many fashionable women attempt”: Thomson, The London Dispensatory, p. 472.
“The Almond Tree”: PLG, p. 326.
“affected”…“had the spasms rather badly”…“medicine in the bottle”: LLR, vol. 1, p. 212.
“No my dear Mr Forster”: L.E.L. to Matthew Forster, October 12, 1838, quoted in Sypher, A Biography, appendix 1, p. 290.
“still with opiates”: Letters, p. 194.
“poor Blanchard”: Diaries of William Charles Macready, vol. 1, p. 486.
“Dear Lady Blessington”: Laman Blanchard to Lady Blessington, Friday (January 4) 1839, BL, Add. MS. 43688, ff. 67–68.
“There are eleven or twelve chambers”: Letters, p. 197.
“That poor Sun”: Letters, p. 184.
“no wonder that a man”: L.E.L. to Fanny Liddiard, undated but written from Cape Coast Castle, Liddiard papers.
Her own breakfast coffee: [Thomson], The Queens of Society, p. 221.
“I must have seen it, had she been so unhappy”: LLR, vol. 1, p. 250.
“And yet this is she who had written”: LLR, vol. 1, p. 249.
Edmund Bannerman: For Bannerman’s story, see Green, White Man’s Grave, p. 164.
“The true history of Mrs Maclean’s death”: Burton, Wanderings in West Africa, vol. 2, p. 80.
“I conclude from your letter”: Jerrold, Poetical Works of Laman Blanchard, p. 61.
Balzac explained: Balzac, Lost Illusions, p. 633.
CHAPTER 14 COVER-UP
“a great blow has fallen on me”: George Maclean to Sir John Maclean, manuscript letter quoted in Watt, Poisoned Lives, p. 198.
“My neighbour”: Buxton, The Africa Slave Trade and Its Remedy, p. 225, note.
“complaint in which he charged”: Note made on December 11, 1839, on back of a subsequent letter from Whittington Landon to Her Majesty’s Secretary of State for the Colonies, CO 267/157.
“My darling Whittington”: Letters, p. 193.
“medical comment”: Whittington Landon to Her Majesty’s Secretary of State for the Colonies, December 11, 1839, CO 267/157.
“most anxious”: Whittington Landon to Her Majesty’s Secretary of State for the Colonies, February 15, 1839, CO 267/157.
“of all men”: George Maclean to Sir John Maclean, May 10, 1839, manuscript quoted in Watt, Poisoned Lives, p. 207.
“I do not hesitate to say”: LLR, vol. 1, p. 239.
“little native boy”: [Thomson], The Queens of Society, p. 196.
“malignant woman”…“calumnies”: Hutchinson, Impressions of West Africa, p. 60.
“offensive”…“persons of distinction”: The Times, December 25, 1840, p. 7.
“I hereby declare”: The Times, January 1, 1841, p. 5.
the Robert Heddle: Metcalfe, Maclean of the Gold Coast, p. 263; Sherwood, After Abolition, p. 71.
“It was no part of Captain Groves’ duty”: Sherwood, After Abolition, p. 71.
Parliamentary Select Committee…press vilification: Ibid., pp. 70–71.
“it was painful to hear the twaddle”: Ibid., p. 72.
the guest list: Sourced from “A Charles Dickens Journal,” www.dickenslive.com.
Mrs. Leo Hunter: The Pickwick Papers, ch. 15.
the unpublished letter he wrote to Lady Blessington: BL, Add. 43688, ff. 64–65.
Laura Deacon…friends with Letitia: Mitchell, Bulwer Lytton, pp. 48, 52, 70, 233.
“freemasonry which exists among ‘gentlemen’ ”: Rosina Bulwer Lytton, A Blighted Life, pp. 4–5.
poetry collection: Blanchard, Lyric Offerings, p. 71.
how good-looking he was: Letters, p. 46.
“dark, handsome jewish features”: Vizetelly, Glances Back Through Seventy Years, p. 143.
injured by flying fragments of glass: Patmore, My Friends and Acquaintance, vol. 3, p. 210.
“Do you, my dear Mr Blanchard”: Letters, pp. 147–48.
an unpublished letter of 1832: Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies, DE/K/C2/110. Bulwer’s mention of Blanchard’s poetry volume occurs in “Retrospective Poetry,” New Monthly Magazine, May 1, 1832, p. 442.
Blanchard was, in Bulwer’s view: Introductory memoir, Sketches from the Life by the Late Laman Blanchard.
“free lance”: Bulwer’s introduction, Sketches from the Life by the Late Laman Blanchard, p. vii.
“monstering”: Patmore, My Friends and Acquaintance, vol. 3, p. 230.
“keep her memory as a pleasant odour”: Letter from Blanchard quoted in S. C. Hall, A Book of Memories, p. 280.
“domestic fight this gallant little woman made”: Jerrold, Poetical Works of Laman Blanchard, introductory memoir, p. 60.
“We have rarely opened a more painful or unsatisfa
ctory book”: The Athenaeum, May 29, 1841, p. 421.
he later moralized: Chorley, Autobiography, vol. 1, p. 252.
“passion” was “pasteboard”: Letters of Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 1836–1854, vol. 1, p. 252.
“into slander”: Ibid., vol. 1, p. 170.
“If I have failed”: S. C. Hall, A Book of Memories, p. 280.
“sudden attacks of tears”: Bulwer’s introduction, Sketches from the Life by the Late Laman Blanchard, pp. xxxii–xxxiii.
Bulwer believed: Ibid., p. vii.
“during a moment of temporary insanity”: Pictorial Times, February 22, 1845.
“tasteful tribute”: Illustrated London News, January 3, 1857.
“drifted away into London journalism”: Ellis, A Mid-Victorian Pepys, p. 165, note.
“the angel in the house”: Phrase coined by P. G. Patmore’s son, the arch-Victorian poet Coventry Patmore.
“It is not the blood of my body”: The Times, December 23, 1839, p. 7.
“I have heard too much calumny”: Bulwer to Blanchard, January 6, 1839, introductory memoir, Jerrold, Poetical Works of Laman Blanchard, p. 61.
governess job: Matoff, Conflicted Life, p. 447.
“Sweet indeed is the bread”: Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies, DE/K/C24/26.
petty embezzlement: Cross, The Royal Literary Fund, p. 15.
“not worth having”: L.E.L. to Bulwer, quoted in Sypher, A Biography, p. 279.
Whittington continued to bother the countess: Whittington Landon to Marguerite, Countess of Blessington, January 17, 1839; November 8, 1839; November 12, 1839; January 12, 1842: MSS: New York Public Library, Pforzheimer Collection, Blessington Papers, vol. 3, pp. 252–55.
lock of L.E.L.’s 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.”
Slebech: Pembrokeshire Archives and Local Studies.
he wrote to Bulwer: Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies, DE/K/C24/26.
“united contributions of several old friends”: Katherine Thomson to William Jerdan, undated, Bodleian, MSS. Eng. lett. d. 113–14.
buy from him the copyrights: Bodleian, MSS. Eng. lett. d. 113–14.
“When the lamp is flickering out”: William Jerdan to Edward Bulwer Lytton, September 1, 1862, Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies, DE/K/C11.
Their grandson married Nancy Mitford: information from WikiTree genealogical website.
around £35,000: “Stephen, Leslie,” DNB, 1887, vol. 11, pp. 254–55.
“an exacting husband”: Davies, John Forster: A Literary Life, p. 181.
“entertained such a deep affection for her”: Lady Blessington to Dr. Madden, December 19, 1840, Pforzheimer Collection, New York Public Library, Bless. 1.011 b.
“exonerated and demoted”: Huzzey, Freedom Burning, p. 139.
Henry Hill: Metcalfe, Maclean of the Gold Coast, p. 305.
“guilty of bribery”: Sherwood, After Abolition, p. 73.
butler at Belsize Villa was jailed: Ibid.
“the moral beauty of England”: Metcalfe, Maclean of the Gold Coast, p. 270.
One of the men, Kwantabisa: Ibid., p. 274.
CHAPTER 15 HAUNTINGS
“ruin’d wall / Lies worn and rent”…“flirtation”…“feelings conjured up”: Jerdan, 1848 memoir, p. xix.
“see how such a man”: Hawthorne, The English Notebooks, p. 282.
“any truth in the scandalous rumours”…“never yielded her virtue to him”: Ibid., p. 283.
Bennoch knew about Fred: Matoff, Conflicted Life, pp. 488, 496.
“fatal facility”: Lewes, Rose, Blanche and Violet, vol. 2, pp. 49–50.
“He gives no charming picture”: Letters of Charlotte Brontë, vol. 2, p. 58.
Rose Ellen Hendricks: Salmon, The Formation of the Victorian Literary Profession, p. 178.
“for ever known”…“celebrity”: Robert Southey to Charlotte Brontë, March 12, 1837, Letters of Charlotte Brontë, vol. 1, p. 167.
John Chapman: Hughes, George Eliot, p. 103.
“L.E.L.’s Last Question”: Athenaeum, January 26, 1839.
“I fancy it would have worked out better”: Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Mary Russell Mitford, vol. 1, p. 235.
“an autobiography of a poetess”: Cited in Salmon, The Formation of the Victorian Literary Profession, p. 176.
“The Old Stoic”: Emily Brontë: The Complete Poems, p. 30.
“Yet saith a saint”: Poetical Works of Christina Georgina Rossetti, p. 345.
hymn to Dolores: Swinburne’s Collected Poetical Works, vol. 1, pp. 154–68.
“shame”…“love that dare not speak its name”: “Two Loves,” by Lord Alfred Douglas, first published in The Chameleon, December 1894.
“the transitory, the fleeting, the contingent”: Baudelaire, The Painter of Modern Life, 4, “Modernity” (1859), p. 17.
Bibliography
WORKS BY LETITIA LANDON
L.E.L. was so preternaturally prolific that establishing her complete oeuvre, including her every miscellaneous contribution to various magazines, annuals, and anthologies, remains a work in progress. F. J. Sypher’s Letitia Elizabeth Landon: A Bibliography (Ann Arbor, MI: Scholars’ Facsimiles and Reprints, 2005) gives some idea of the sheer quantity of material and the number of editions, as does the online bibliography compiled by Glenn Dibert-Himes as part of Sheffield Hallam University’s Corvey Project. They are invaluable resources but are not exhaustive.
Although little of Letitia Landon’s work is today available in easily accessible or affordable modern editions, original nineteenth-century versions of many of her books have been digitally scanned and can be read online at www.archive.org.
1. Poems in periodicals
Poems from the Literary Gazette, ed. F. J. Sypher (Ann Arbor, MI: Scholars’ Facsimiles and Reprints, 2003), collects all her contributions to that magazine, 1820–36.
Poems from the New Monthly Magazine, ed. F. J. Sypher (Ann Arbor, MI: Scholars’ Facsimiles and Reprints, 2007), collects her contributions 1825–39.
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However, L.E.L.’s poems also appeared in many other periodicals, including (among others) The Examiner, The Gentleman’s Magazine, The Court Journal, and Fraser’s Magazine.
2. Poetry collections
The Fate of Adelaide. London: John Warren, 1821.
The Improvisatrice and Other Poems. London: Hurst and Robinson, 1824.
The Troubadour: Catalogue of Pictures and Historical Sketches. London: Hurst and Robinson, 1824.
The Golden Violet: With Its Tales of Romance and Chivalry. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, 1827.
The Venetian Bracelet, The Lost Pleiad, A History of the Lyre, and Other Poems. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, 1829.
The Easter Gift: A Religious Offering. London: Fisher, Son & Co., 1832.
The Vow of the Peacock, and Other Poems. London: Saunders and Otley, 1835.
Flowers of Loveliness. London: Ackermann, 1838.
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Posthumous editions, of which there were many, include:
Miss Landon’s Complete Works. Boston: Phillips, Sampson and Co., 1854.
Poetical Works. London: George Routledge and Sons, 1873.
3. Novels
Romance and Reality, 3 vols. London: H. Colburn and R. Bentley, 1831. The one-volume 1848 reissue, published by Richard Bentley, includes an anonymous memoir by William Jerdan.
Francesca Carrara, 3 vols. London: Richard Bentley, 1834.
Ethel Churchill; or, The Two Brides. London: Henry Colburn, 1837.
Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping Up Appearances. London: H. Colburn, 1842 (only part-written by L.E.L. and published posthumously).
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Edited (possibly ghostwritten) by L.E.L.:
The Heir Presumptive by Lady Stepney. London: Richard Bentley, 1835.
Duty and Inclination, edited by Miss Landon. London: H. Colburn, 1838.
4. Annuals and gift books
Fisher’s Drawing-Room Scrap Book for 1832, 1833, 1834, 1835, 1836, 1837, 1838.
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L.E.L. also contributed material to many other annuals and anthologies, including The Forget-Me-Not, Friendship’s Offering, The Literary Souvenir, The Amulet, Death’s Doings, The Pledge of Friendship, The Bijou, The Poetical Album and Register of Modern Fugitive Poetry, The Keepsake, The Juvenile Forget-Me-Not, Heath’s Book of Beauty, Finden’s Gallery of the Graces, Schloss’s Bijou Almanac, and The Pictorial Album.
5. Criticism
It is hard to establish the extent of L.E.L.’s criticism given the culture of anonymous reviewing, but she regularly contributed reviews to the Literary Gazette, and to other magazines too. Some key works of criticism are collected in F. J. Sypher’s Critical Writings by Letitia Elizabeth Landon (Delmar, NY: Scholars’ Facsimiles and Reprints, 1996). Her essays on the female characters of Walter Scott are printed in Laman Blanchard’s Life and Literary Remains, vol. 2.
6. Short fiction
Traits and Trials of Early Life. London: H. Colburn, 1836.
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Other stories, which originally appeared in periodicals and gift books, are collected in S. J. Sypher, ed., Tales and Sketches by Letitia Elizabeth Landon (Delmar, NY: Scholars’ Facsimiles and Reprints, 1999).
7. Drama
L.E.L. often wrote dramatic scenes and monologues, but her one play, never performed, was Castruccio Castracani, or the triumph of Lucca: a tragedy, printed in Laman Blanchard’s Life and Literary Remains of L.E.L. (London: Colburn, 1841), vol. 2.
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