150-] English Literature

150-] English Literature

Letitia Elizabeth Landon  

 

List of works

In addition to the works listed below, Landon was responsible for numerous anonymous reviews, and other articles whose authorship is unlikely now to be established (compare Emma Roberts above). She also assumed the occasional pseudonym: for one, she adopted the name Iole for a period from 1825 to 1827. Two of her Iole poems, The Wreck and The Frozen Ship, were later included in the collection, The Vow of the Peacock. Mary Mitford said that the novels of Catherine Stepney were honed and polished by Landon—e.g. The Heir Presumptive (1835). In the case of Duty and Inclination, she is declared as editor but no originator has been named and the extent of Landon's involvement is unclear.

On her death, she left a list of projected works. Besides the novel Lady Anne Granard (first volume completed) and her "tragedy" (Castruccio Catrucani), there were: a critical work in 3 volumes to be called Female Portrait Gallery in Modern Literature for which she says she has collected a vast amount of material (only some portraits based on Walter Scott were produced); a romance called Charlotte Corday for which a plan was sketched plus a "chapter or two"; and a projected 2 volume work on "travels in the country I am about to visit, including the history of the slave trade of which I shall [have] the opportunity of collecting so many curious facts".

The Fate of Adelaide. A Swiss Romantic tale and other poems. London: John Warren, 1821.

Fragments in Rhyme. London. The Literary Gazette, 1822–3.

Poetic Sketches (5 series). London. The Literary Gazette, 1822–4.

Medallion Wafers. London. The Literary Gazette, 1823.

Poetical Catalogue of Pictures. London. The Literary Gazette, 1823.

The Improvisatrice and other poems, with embellishments. London, Hurst Robinson & Co., 1824.

The Troubadour. Catalogue of pictures and historical sketches. London: Hurst, Robinson and Co., 1825.

The Golden Violet with its tales of Romance and Chivalry, and other poems. 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.

Romance and Reality. London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley. 1831.

The Easter Gift, A Religious Offering. London: Fisher, Son, & Co, 1832.

Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Books. London & Paris: Fisher, Son, & Co., 1832–1839.

The Book of Beauty; or, Regal Gallery. London: Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1833.

"The Enchantress and Other Tales." The Novelists Magazine 1 (1833): 90-118.

Metrical versions of the Odes tr. in Corinne, or Italy by Madame de Staël tr. by Isabel Hill. London. Richard Bentley, 1833.

Francesca Carrara. London: Richard Bentley. 1834.

Calendar of the London Seasons. The New Monthly Magazine, 1834.

The Vow of the Peacock and other poems. London: Saunders and Otley, 1835.

Versions from the German. London. The Literary Gazette, 1835.

Traits and Trials of Early Life. London. H. Colburn, 1836.

Subjects for Pictures.. London. The New Monthly Magazine, 1836–8.

Schloss's (English) Bijou Almanacks, 1836-1839.

Pictorial Album; or, Cabinet of Paintings, Chapman and Hall, 1837.

Ethel Churchill; or, The Two Brides. London: Henry Colburn, 1837.

Flowers of Loveliness. London: Ackerman & Co., 1838.

Duty and Inclination: A Novel (as editor). London: Henry Colburn, 1838.

The Female Picture Gallery. London. The New Monthly Magazine, 1838 and Laman Blanchard.

Castruccio Castrucani, a tragedy in 5 acts. In Laman Blanchard.

Lady Anne Granard, or Keeping Up Appearances. London, Henry Colburn, 1842 - L.E.L. volume 1, completed by another.

The Zenana, and minor poems of L.E.L. London: Fisher, Son & Co. 1839. p. 204.

"The Love Letter, circa 1816"

The Marriage Vow

Numerous short stories in various publications .

In translation

Die Sängerin. Frankfurt: M. Brönner, 1830. Translation by Clara Himly, together with The Improvisatrice, in English .

Francesca Carrara . Bremen: A. D. Geisler, 1835. Translation by C. W. Geisler .

Adele Churchill , oder die zwei Bräute. Leipzig: Kirchner & Schwetschte, 1839. Translation by Fr. L. von Soltau .

Ethel Churchill , of De twee bruiden. Middelburg: J.C & W. Altorffer, 1844. (Translator unknown) .

Les Album des Salons, 1832 onwards, accompagnées de Poésies Descriptives par L.E.L. Fisher.

Family

In 2000, scholar Cynthia Lawford published birth records implying that Landon had in fact borne children in the 1820s from a secret affair with William Jerdan. Details of Letitia's children by Jerdan (Ella, Fred and Laura) and their descendants can be found in Susan Matoff.

Erinna

BY LETITIA ELIZABETH LANDON

Was she of spirit race, or was she one

Of earth's least earthly daughters, one to whom

A gift of loveliness and soul is given,

Only to make them wretched?

 

There is an antique gem, on which her brow

Retains its graven beauty even now .

Her hair is braided, but one curl behind

Floats as enamour'd of the summer wind;

The rest is simple. Is she not too fair

Even to think of maiden's sweetest care?

The mouth and brow are contrasts. One so fraught

With pride, the melancholy pride of thought

Conscious of power, and yet forced to know

How little way such power as that can go;

Regretting, while too proud of the fine mind,

Which raises but to part it from its kind:

But the sweet mouth had nothing of all this;

It was a mouth the rose had lean'd to kiss

For her young sister, telling, now though mute,

How soft an echo it was to the lute .

The one spoke genius, in its high revealing;

The other smiled a woman's gentle feeling.

It was a lovely face: the Greek outline

Flowing, yet delicate and feminine;

The glorious lightning of the kindled eye,

Raised , as it communed with its native sky.

A lovely face the spirit's fitting shrine;

The one almost, the other quite divine .

 

My hand is on the lyre which never more

With its sweet commerce, like a bosom friend,

Will share the deeper thoughts which I could trust

Only to music and to solitude .

It is the very grove, the olive grove,

Where first I laid my laurel crown aside,

And bathed my fever'd brow in the cold stream;

As if that I could wash away the fire

Which from that moment kindled in my heart .

I well remember how I flung myself,

Like a young goddess, on a purple cloud

Of light and odour — the rich violets

Were so ethereal in bloom and breath:

And I — I felt immortal, for my brain

Was drunk and mad with its first draught of fame .

'Tis strange there was one only cypress tree,

And then, as now, I lay beneath its shade.

The night had seen me pace my lonely room,

Clasping the lyre I had no heart to wake,

Impatient for the day: yet its first dawn

Came cold as death; for every pulse sank down,

Until the very presence of my hope

Became to me a fear .    The sun rose up;

I stood alone 'mid thousands: but I felt

Mine inspiration; and, as the last sweep

Of my song died away amid the hills,

My heart reverb'rated the shout which bore

To the blue mountains and the distant heaven

Erinna's name, and on my bended knee,

Olympus, I received thy laurel crown.

 

   And twice new birth of violets have sprung,

Since they were first my pillow, since I sought

In the deep silence of the olive grove

The dreamy happiness which solitude

Brings to the soul o'erfill'd with its delight:

For I was like some young and sudden heir

Of a rich palace heap'd with gems and gold,

Whose pleasure doubles as he sums his wealth

And forms a thousand plans of festival;

Such were my myriad visions of delight.

The lute, which hitherto in Delphian shades

Had been my twilight's solitary joy,

Would henceforth be a sweet and breathing bond

Between me and my kind .    Orphan unloved,

I had been lonely from my childhood's hour,

Childhood whose very happiness is love:

But that was over now; my lyre would be

My own heart's true interpreter , and those

To whom my song was dear, would they not bless

The hand that waken'd it ? I should be loved

For the so gentle sake of those soft chords

Which mingled others' feelings with mine own .

 

    Vow'd I that song to meek and gentle thoughts,

To tales that told of sorrow and of love,

To all our nature's finest touches, all

That wakens sympathy: and I should be

Alone no longer; every wind that bore,

And every lip that breathed one strain of mine,

Henceforth partake in all my joy and grief.

Oh! glorious is the gifted poet's lot,

And touching more than glorious: 'tis to be

Companion of the heart's least earthly hour;

The voice of love and sadness, calling forth

Tears from their silent fountain: 'tis to have

Share in all nature's loveliness; giving flowers

A life as sweet, more lasting than their own;

And catching from green wood and lofty pine

Language mysterious as musical;

Making the thoughts , which else had only been

Like colours on the morning's earliest hour,

Immortal, and worth immortality;

Yielding the hero that eternal name

For which he fought; making the patriot's deed

A stirring record for long after-time;

Cherishing tender thoughts, which else had pass'd

Away like tears; and saving the loved dead

From death's worst part — its deep forgetfulness .

 

From the first moment when a falling leaf,

Or opening bud , or streak of rose-touch'd sky,

Waken'd in me the flush and flow of song,

I gave my soul entire unto the gift

I deem'd mine own, direct from heaven; it was

The hope, the bliss, the energy of life;

I had no hope that dwelt not with my lyre,

No bliss whose being grew not from my lyre ,

No energy undevoted to my lyre.

It was my other self that had a power;

Mine, but o'er which I had not a control.

At times it was not with me, and I felt

A wonder how it ever had been mine :

And then a word, a look of loveliness,

A tone of music, call'd it into life;

A song came gushing, like the natural tears,

To check whose current does not rest with us .

 

    Had I lived ever in the savage woods,

Or in some distant island, which the sea

With wind and wave guards in deep loneliness;

Had my eye never on the beauty dwelt

Of human face, and my ear never drank

The music of a human voice; I feel

My spirit would have pour'd itself in song,

Have learn'd a language from the rustling leaves,

The singing of the birds, and of the tide .

Perchance, then, happy had I never known

Another thought could be attach'd to song

Than of its own delight.    Oh ! let me pause

Over this earlier period, when my heart

Mingled its being with its pleasures, fill'd

With rich enthusiasm , which once flung

Its purple colouring o'er all things of earth,

And without which our utmost power of thought

But sharpens arrows that will drink our blood .

Like woman's soothing influence o'er man

Enthusiasm is upon the mind;

Softening and beautifying that which is

Too harsh and sullen in itself .    How much

I loved the painter's glorious art, which forms

A world like, but more beautiful than, this;

Just catching nature in her happiest mood!

How drank I in fine poetry, which makes

The hearing passionate, fill'd with memories

Which steal from out the past like rays from clouds!

And then the sweet songs of my native vale,

Whose sweetness and whose softness call'd to mind

The perfume of the flowers, the purity

Of the blue sky; oh, how they stirr'd my soul! —

Amid the many golden gifts which heaven

Has left, like portions of its light, on earth

None hath such influence as music hath.

The painter's hues stand visible before us

In power and beauty; we can trace the thoughts

Which are the workings of the poet's mind:

But music is a mystery, and viewless

Even when present, and is less man's act,

And less within his order; for the hand

That can call forth the tones, yet cannot tell

Whither they go, or if they live or die,

When floated once beyond his feeble ear;

And then, as if it were an unreal thing,

The wind will sweep from the neglected strings

As rich a swell as ever minstrel drew.

 

    A poet's word, a painter's touch, will reach

The innermost recesses of the heart,

Making the pulses throb in unison

With joy or grief, which we can analyse;

There is the cause for pleasure and for pain:

But music moves us, and we know not why;

We feel the tears, but cannot trace their source.

Is it the language of some other state ,

Born of its memory?    For what can wake

The soul's strong instinct of another world,

Like music?    Well with sadness doth it suit

To hear the melancholy sounds decay,

And think (for thoughts are life's great human links,

And mingle with our feelings) even so

Will the heart's wildest pulses sink to rest .

 

How have I loved, when the red evening fill'd

Our temple with its glory, first, to gaze

On the strange contrast of the crimson air,

Lighted as if with passion, and flung back,

From silver vase and tripod rich with gems,

To the pale statues round, where human life

Was not, but beauty was, which seem'd to have

Apart existence from humanity:

Then, to go forth where the tall waving pines

Seem'd as behind them roll'd a golden sea

Immortal and eternal; and the boughs,

That darkly swept between me and its light,

Were fitting emblems of the worldly cares

That are the boundary between us and heaven;

Meanwhile, the wind, a wilful messenger

Lingering amid the flowers on his way,

At intervals swept past in melody,

The lutes and voices of the choral hymn

Contending with the rose-breath on his wing!

Perhaps it is these pleasures' chiefest charm,

They are so indefinable, so vague.

From earliest childhood all too well aware

Of the uncertain nature of our joys,

It is delicious to enjoy, yet know

No after-consequence will be to weep.

Pride misers with enjoyment, when we have

Delight in things that are but of the mind:

But half humility when we partake

Pleasures that are half wants, the spirit pines

And struggles in its fetters, and disdains

The low base clay to which it is allied .

But here our rapture raises us: we feel

What glorious power is given to man, and find

Our nature's nobleness and attributes,

Whose heaven is intellect; and we are proud

To think how we can love those things of earth

Which are least earthly; and the soul grows pure

In this high communing, and more divine.

 

    This time of dreaming happiness pass'd by,

Another spirit was within my heart;

I drank the maddening cup of praise, which grew

Henceforth the fountain of my life; I lived

Only in others' breath; a word, a look,

Were of all influence on my destiny:

If praise they spoke, 'twas sunlight to my soul;

Or censure, it was like the scorpion's sting.

 

And yet a darker lesson was to learn —

The hollowness of each: that praise, which is

But base exchange of flattery; that blame,

Given by cautious coldness, which still deems

'Tis safest to depress; that mockery,

Flinging shafts but to show its own keen aim ;

That carelessness, whose very censure's chance;

And, worst of all, the earthly judgment pass'd

By minds whose native clay is unredeem'd

By aught of heaven, whose every thought falls foul

Plague-spot on beauty which they cannot feel,

Tainting all that it touches with itself .

O dream of fame, what hast thou been to me

But the destroyer of life's calm content!

I feel so more than ever, that thy sway

Is weaken'd over me . Once I could find

A deep and dangerous delight in thee;

But that is gone.    I am too much awake.

Light has burst o'er me, but not morning's light;

'Tis such light as will burst upon the tomb,

When all but judgment's over .    Can it be ,

That these fine impulses, these lofty thoughts,

Burning with their own beauty, are but given

To make me the low slave of vanity,

Heartless and humbled ?     O my own sweet power,

Surely thy songs are made for more than this!

What a worst waste of feeling and of life

Have been the imprints of my roll of time,

Too much, too long!    To what use have I turn'd

The golden gifts in which I pride myself ?

They are profaned; with their pure ore I made

A temple resting only on the breath

Of heedless worshippers .    Alas ! that ever

Praise should have been what it has been to me —

The opiate of my heart .    Yet I have dream'd

Of things which cannot be; the bright, the pure,

That all of which the heart may only dream;

And I have mused upon my gift of song,

And deeply felt its beauty , and disdain'd

The pettiness of praise to which at times

My soul has bow'd; and I have scorn'd myself

For that my cheek could burn, my pulses beat

At idle words.    And yet it is in vain

For the full heart to press back every throb

Wholly upon itself .    Ay, fair as are

The visions of a poet's solitude,

There must be something more for happiness;

They seek communion.    It had seem'd to me

A miser's selfishness, had I not sought

To share with others those impassion'd thoughts,

Like light, or hope, or love, in their effects.

When I have watch'd the stars write on the sky

In characters of light, have seen the moon

Come like veiled priestess from the east,

While, like a hymn, the wind swell'd on mine ear,

Telling soft tidings of eve's thousand flowers,

Has it not been the transport of my lute

To find its best delight in sympathy ?

Alas! the idols which our hopes set up,

They are Chaldean ones, half gold, half clay;

We trust we are deceived, we hope, we fear,

Alike without foundation; day by day

Some new illusion is destroyed, and life

Gets cold and colder on towards its close .

Just like the years which make it, some are check'd

By sudden blights in spring; some are dried up

By fiery summers; others waste away

In calm monotony of quiet skies,

And peradventure these may be the best:

They know no hurricanes, no floods that sweep

As a God's vengeance were upon each wave;

But then they have no ruby fruits, no flowers

Shining in purple, and no lighted mines

Of gold and diamond .    Which is the best, —

Beauty and glory, in a southern clime,

Mingled with thunder, tempest; or the calm

Of skies that scarcely change, which, at the least,

If much of shine they have not, have no storms?

I know not: but I know fair earth or sky

Are self-consuming in their loveliness,

And the too radiant sun and fertile soil

In their luxuriance run themselves to waste,

And the green valley and the silver stream

Become a sandy desert.    O! the mind,

Too vivid in its lighted energies,

May read its fate in sunny Araby .

How lives its beauty in each Eastern tale,

Its growth of spices, and its groves of balm!

They are exhausted; and what is it now?

A wild and burning wilderness .    Alas!

For such similitude . Too much this is

The fate of this world's loveliest and best.

 

    Is there not a far people, who possess

Mysterious oracles of olden time,

Who say that this earth labours with a curse ,

That it is fallen from its first estate,

And is now but the shade of what it was?

I do believe the tale.    I feel its truth

In my vain aspirations, in the dreams

That are revealings of another world,

More pure, more perfect than our weary one,

Where day is darkness to the starry soul .

 

    O heart of mine! my once sweet paradise

Of love and hope! how changed thou art to me!

I cannot count thy changes: thou hast lost

Interest in the once idols of thy being;

They have departed, even as if wings

Had borne away their morning; they have left

Weariness, turning pleasure into pain,

And too sure knowledge of their hollowness .

  

    And that too is gone from me; that which was

My solitude's delight!    I can no more

Make real existence of a shadowy world.

Time was, the poet's song, the ancient tale,

Were to me fountains of deep happiness ,

For they grew visible in my lonely hours,

As things in which I had a deed and part;

Their actual presence had not been more true :

But these are bubbling sparkles, that are found

But at the spring's first source .    Ah! years may bring

The mind to its perfection, but no more

Will those young visions live in their own light ;

Life's troubles stir life's waters all too much,

Passions chase fancies, and though still we dream,

The colouring is from reality.

 

    Farewell, my lyre! thou hast not been to me

All I once hoped.    What is the gift of mind ,

But as a barrier to so much that makes

Our life endurable, — companionship,

Mingling affection, calm and gentle peace,

Till the vex'd spirit seals with discontent

A league of sorrow and of vanity,

Built on a future which will never be!

 

    And yet I would resign the praise that now

Makes my cheek crimson, and my pulses beat,

Could I but deem that when my hand is cold ,

And my lip passionless, my songs would be

Number'd mid the young poet's first delights;

Read by the dark-eyed maiden in an hour

Of moonlight, till her cheek shone with its tears;

And murmur'd by the lover when his suit

Calls upon poetry to breathe of love .

I do not hope a sunshine burst of fame,

My lyre asks but a wreath of fragile flowers.

I have told passionate tales of breaking hearts,

Of young cheeks fading even before the rose;

My songs have been the mournful history

Of woman's tenderness and woman's tears;

I have touch'd but the spirit's gentlest chords, —

Surely the fittest for my maiden hand; —

And in their truth my immortality .

 

    Thou lovely and lone star, whose silver light,

Like music o'er the waters, steals along

The soften'd atmosphere; pale star, to thee

I dedicate the lyre, whose influence

I would have sink upon the heart like thine.

     In such an hour as this, the bosom turns

Back to its early feelings; man forgets

His stern ambition and his worldly cares,

And woman loathes the petty vanities

That mar her nature's beauty; like the dew,

Shedding its sweetness o'er the sleeping flowers

Till all their morning freshness is revived,

Kindly affections, sad but yet sweet thoughts,

Melt the cold eyes, long, long unused to weep.

O lute of mine , that I shall wake no more!

Such tearful music, linger on thy strings,

Consecrate unto sorrow and to love;

Thy truth, thy tenderness, be all thy fame!

 

149-] English Literature

149-] English Literature

 Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (14 August 1802 – 15 October 1838) was an English poet and novelist, better known by her initials L.E.L.

The writings of Landon are transitional between Romanticism and the Victorian Age. Her first major breakthrough came with The Improvisatrice and thence she developed the metrical romance towards the Victorian ideal of the Victorian monologue, casting her influence on Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Browning and Christina Rossetti. Her influence can also be found in Alfred Tennyson and in America, where she was very popular. Poe regarded her genius as self-evident.

In spite of these wide influences, due to the perceived immorality of Landon's lifestyle, her works were largely ignored or misrepresented after her death.

Early life

Letitia Elizabeth Landon was born on 14 August 1802 in Chelsea, London to John Landon and Catherine Jane, née Bishop. A precocious child, Landon learned to read as a toddler; a disabled neighbour would scatter letter tiles on the floor and reward young Letitia for reading, and, according to her father, "she used to bring home many rewards".

At the age of five, Landon began attending Frances Arabella Rowden's school at 22 Hans Place, Knightsbridge. Rowden was an engaging teacher, a poet, and had a particular enthusiasm for the theatre. According to Mary Russell Mitford, "she had a knack of making poetesses of her pupils". Other pupils of Rowden were: Caroline Ponsonby, later Lady Caroline Lamb; Emma Roberts, the travel writer; Anna Maria Fielding, who published as Mrs S. C. Hall; and Rosina Doyle Wheeler, who married Edward Bulwer-Lytton and published her many novels as Rosina Bulwer Lytton. It was here that Landon became fluent in French from an early age.

The Landons moved to the country in 1809, so that John Landon could carry out a model farm project. Letitia was educated at home by her older cousin Elizabeth from that point on. Elizabeth found her knowledge and abilities outstripped by those of her pupil: "When I asked Letitia any question relating either to history, geography, grammar – Plutarch's Lives, or to any book we had been reading, I was pretty certain her answers would be perfectly correct; still, not exactly recollecting, and unwilling she should find out just then that I was less learned than herself, I used thus to question her: 'Are you quite certain?' ... I never knew her to be wrong."

When young, Letitia was close to her younger brother, Whittington Henry, born 1804. Paying for university education for him, at Worcester College, Oxford , was one of the reasons that brought Letitia to publish. She also supported his preferment and later (in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1838) dedicated her poetical illustration Captain Cook to him, in recollection of their domestic childhood adventures together. Whittington went on to become a minister and published a book of sermons in 1835. Rather than showing appreciation for his sister's assistance, he spread false rumours about her marriage and death. Letitia also had a younger sister, Elizabeth Jane (born 1806), who was a frail child and died in 1819 aged just 13. Little is known of Elizabeth but her death may well have left a profound impression on Letitia and it could be Elizabeth who is referred to in the poem "The Forgotten One" ("I have no early flowers to fling").

Literary career

An agricultural depression meant that the Landon family moved back to London in 1815. There John Landon made the acquaintance of William Jerdan, editor of The Literary Gazette. According to Mrs A. T. Thomson, Jerdan took notice of the young Letitia Landon when he saw her coming down the street, "trundling a hoop with one hand, and holding in the other a book of poems, of which she was catching a glimpse between the agitating course of her evolutions". Jerdan later described her ideas as "original and extraordinary". He encouraged Landon's poetic endeavours, and her first poem was published under the single initial "L" in the Gazette in 1820, when Landon was 18. The following year, with financial support from her grandmother, Landon published a book of poetry, The Fate of Adelaide, under her full name. The book met with little critical notice, but sold well; Landon, however, received no profits, since the publisher shortly went out of business. The same month that The Fate of Adelaide appeared, Landon published two poems under the initials "L.E.L." in the Gazette; these poems, and the initials under which they were published, attracted much discussion and speculation. As contemporary critic Laman Blanchard put it, the initials L.E.L. "speedily became a signature of magical interest and curiosity". Bulwer Lytton wrote that, as a young college student, he and his classmates would rush every Saturday afternoon for the Literary Gazette, [with] an impatient anxiety to hasten at once to that corner of the sheet which contained the three magical letters L.E.L. And all of us praised the verse, and all of us guessed at the author. We soon learned it was a female, and our admiration was doubled, and our conjectures tripled.

Landon served as the Gazette's chief reviewer as she continued to write poetry and she soon began to display an enthusiastic interest in art, which she projected into her poetic productions. She began, in innovative fashion, with a series on Medallion Wafers, which were commercially produced highly decorative letter seals. This was closely followed in the Literary Gazette by a Poetical Catalogue of Pictures, which was to be ‘continued occasionally’ and which in fact continued unremarked into 1824, the year her landmark volume, The Improvisatrice; and Other Poems was published. A further group of these poems was published in 1825 in her next volume, The Troubadour, as Poetical Sketches of Modern Pictures. In The Troubadour she included a lament for her late father, who died in 1824, thus forcing her to write to support her family; Some contemporaries saw this profit-motive as detrimental to the quality of Landon's work: a woman was not supposed to be a professional writer. Also, by 1826, Landon's reputation began to suffer as rumours circulated that she had had affairs or secretly borne children. However, her further volumes of poetry continued to be favourably reviewed, these being The Golden Violet with its Tales of Romance and Chivalry and Other Poems (1827) and The Venetian Bracelet, The Lost Pleiad, A History of the Lyre, and Other Poems (1829).

The new trend of annual gift books provided her with new opportunities for continuing her engagement with art through combinations of an engraved artwork and what she came to call ‘a poetical illustration’. In the 1830s she became a highly valued artist in this field, included amongst her work, most of the poetry for Fisher’s Drawing Room Scrap Books from 1832 through to 1839. Sarah Sheppard describes this work thus: 'How did pictures ever seem to speak to her soul ! how would she seize on some interesting characteristic in the painting or engraving before her, and inspire it with new life, till that pictured scene spread before you in bright association with some touching history or spirit-stirring poem! L.E.L.'s appreciation of painting, like that of music, was intellectual rather than mechanical,—belonging to the combinations rather than to the details; she loved the poetical effects and suggestive influences of the Arts, although caring not for their mere technicalities.'[17] In the words of Glenn T. Hines, 'What L.E.L.'s readers appreciated in her creations was that "new life" that she brought to her subject. Her imaginative re-castings produced intellectual pleasure for her audience. The wonderful characteristic of L.E.L.'s writings, which her readers recognized, was the author's special creative capacity to bring new meanings to her audience.'

She continued to publish poetry, but, as trends changed, she turned to prose in 1831 with her first novel, Romance and Reality. The following year, she produced her only volume of religious poetry, The Easter Gift, again as illustrations to engravings of artwork. Next she was responsible for the whole of Heath's Book of Beauty, 1833, her most self-consciously Byronic volume, which opens with The Enchantress in which she creates a 'Promethean, distinctly Luciferan, model of poetic identity and self-creation'. She returned to the long poem with The Zenana in the Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1834 and gave the 1835 Scrap Book a sting in the tale with The Fairy of the Fountains, Landon's version of the Melusine legend displaying 'the aesthetic dilemma of the woman poet who is exiled not once like the male poet, but twice'. 1834 also saw the publication of her second novel, Francesca Carrara, of which one reviewer commented 'A sterner goddess never presided over the destinies of a novel'.

In July that year Landon visited Paris with a friend, Miss Turin, who was unfortunately taken ill, restricting Landon's activities. However, amongst those she met were Heinrich Heine, Prosper Mérimée, Chateaubriand and Madame Tastu.

In 1835, she became engaged to John Forster. Forster became aware of the rumours regarding Landon's sexual activity, and asked her to refute them. Landon responded that Forster should "make every inquiry in [his] power", which Forster did; after he pronounced himself satisfied, however, Landon broke off their engagement. To him, she wrote:

The more I think, the more I feel I ought not – I can not – allow you to unite yourself with one accused of – I can not write it. The mere suspicion is dreadful as death. Were it stated as a fact, that might be disproved . Were it a difficulty of any other kind, I might say, Look back at every action of my life, ask every friend I have. But what answer can I give ... ? I feel that to give up all idea of a near and dear connection is as much my duty to myself as to you....

Privately, Landon stated that she would never marry a man who had mistrusted her. In a letter to Bulwer Lytton, she wrote that "if his future protection is to harass and humiliate me as much as his present – God keep me from it ... I cannot get over the entire want of delicacy to me which could repeat such slander to myself."

A further volume of poetry, The Vow of the Peacock, was published in 1835 and, in 1836, a volume of stories and poetry for children, Traits and Trials of Early Life. The History of a Child from this volume may draw on the surroundings of her childhood but the circumstances of the story are so unlike the known facts of her early life that it can scarcely be considered as autobiographical.

During the 1830s, Landon’s poetry became more thoughtful and mature. Some of her best poems appeared in The New Monthly Magazine culminating in the series, Subjects for Pictures, with their elaborate rhyming patterns. These are in a sense a reversal of her earlier poetical illustrations of existing pictures. Also in that magazine is the set, Three Extracts from the Diary of a Week and here, she expresses her aim in opening lines, which, in Sypher’s words 'could stand as a preface to much of her poetry'.

A record of the inward world, whose facts

Are thoughts—and feelings—fears, and hopes, and dreams.

There are some days that might outmeasure years—

Days that obliterate the past, and make

The future of the colour which they cast .

A day may be a destiny; for life

Lives in but little—but that little teems

With some one chance, the balance of all time:

A look—a word—and we are wholly changed.

We marvel at ourselves—we would deny

That which is working in the hidden soul;

But the heart knows and trembles at the truth:

On such these records linger.

In 1837, Landon published a further novel, Ethel Churchill. and began to explore new forms in which to express her literary talent.[26] One of these was her dramatic tragedy, Castruccio Castracani, which represents a culmination of her development of the metrical romance, both in its form and content. Already, she had experimented with verses for Schloss's Bijou Almanacks, which measured 3/4 by 1/2 inch and were to be read with a magnifier. She also negotiated with Heath for the publication in the future of a series of Female Portraits of characters from literature. Her final endeavour was Lady Anne Granard (or Keeping up Appearances), a novel on a lighter note, but her work on this at Cape Coast was cut short all too soon.

Later life

Landon began to "[talk] of marrying any one , and of wishing to get away, from England, and from those who had thus misunderstood her". In October 1836, Landon met George Maclean, governor of the Gold Coast (now Ghana), at a dinner party given by Matthew Forster, and the two began a relationship. Maclean, however, moved to Scotland early the following year, to the surprise and distress of Landon and her friends. After much prodding, Maclean returned to England and he and Landon were married shortly thereafter, on 7 June 1838. The marriage was held privately, and Landon spent the first month of it living with friends. Her schoolfriend Emma Roberts wrote of Maclean:

No one could better appreciate than L.E.L. the high and sterling qualities of her lover's character, his philanthropic and unceasing endeavours to improve the condition of the natives of Africa; the noble manner in which he interfered to prevent the horrid waste of human life by the barbarian princes in his neighbourhood; and the chivalric energy with which he strove to put an end to the slave-trade. L.E.L. esteemed Mr Maclean the more, in consequence of his not approaching her with the adulation with which her ear had been accustomed, to satiety; she was gratified by the manly nature of his attachment. Possessing, in her estimation, merits of the highest order, the influence which he gained over her promised, in the opinion of those who were best acquainted with the docility of her temper, and her ready acquiescence with the wishes of those she loved, to ensure lasting happiness.

In early July, the couple sailed for Cape Coast, where they arrived on 16 August 1838. During the short time she had in Africa, Landon continued her work on The Female Portrait Gallery, covering Walter Scott's principal heroines, and completed the first volume of a new novel, Lady Anne Granard, or Keeping Up Appearances .

In his 1883 memoir Retrospect of a Long Life, Samuel Carter Hall writes of Landon's marriage and husband in very negative terms. "Her marriage wrecked her life; but before that fatal mistake was made, slander had been busy with her fair fame" (Retrospect , p. 395). Landon had taken "refuge from [slander] . . . in union with a man utterly incapable of appreciating her or making her happy, and [she] went out with him to his government at the Gold Coast -- to die" (ibid.). Her death was "not even -- tragical as such an ending would have been . . . to wither before the pestilential influences that steam up from that wilderness of swamp and jungle" but rather "to die a violent death -- a fearful one" (ibid.). Here Hall asserts his belief that Landon was murdered by her husband's common-law wife: "unhappy 'L.E.L.' was murdered I have had a doubt. . . . She landed at Cape Coast Castle in July, 1838, and on the 15th of October she was dead . . . from having accidentally taken a dose of prussic acid. But where was she to have procured that poison? . . . .It was not among the contents of the medicine-chest she took out from England" ( ibid., pp. 395–396) . Rather, claims Hall, after arriving in Africa, "Maclean left her on board while he went to arrange matters on shore. A negro woman was there, with four or five children -- his children; she had to be sent into the interior to make room for her legitimate successor. It is understood the negress was the daughter of a king . . . [and] from the moment 'L.E.L.' landed her life was at the mercy of her rival; that by her hand she was done to death I am all but certain" (ibid., p. 396).

In fact Maclean's local mistress had left for Accra long before their arrival, as was confirmed by later interviews with her. His going ashore was most likely to ensure that the accommodation arranged for his new wife was in a healthy condition. The date on her prescription for dilute prussic acid was 1836, probably given when she was first diagnosed as having a critical heart condition.[31] Letitia told her husband that her life depended on it.

Most of Hall's accounts are based on the fantastic stories invented by the press following Mrs Maclean's death and have little or no basis in fact.

Death

Two months later, on 15 October 1838, Landon was found dead, a bottle of prussic acid in her hand. This was a prescription labelled 'Acid Hydrocianicum Delatum, Pharm. London 1836. Medium Dose Five Minims , being about one third the strength of that in former use, prepared by Scheele's proof'. That she was poisoned thereby was an assumption. There is evidence that she showed symptoms of Stokes–Adams syndrome (for one, Mrs Elwood writes that she was subject to spasms, hysterical affections, and deep and instantaneous fainting fits) for which the dilute acid was the standard remedy and, as she told her husband it was so necessary for the preservation of her life, it would appear she had been told that her life was in danger. William Cobbald, the surgeon who attended, reported that 'she was insensible with the pupils of both eyes much dilated', an almost certain indication that a seizure had occurred. No autopsy was carried out (there being no qualified pathologist available) but from the eye-witness accounts it has been argued that Landon suffered a fatal convulsion. Hall notes in Retrospect that Maclean refused Hall's attempts to erect a statue in honour of Landon, and that her funeral services were shrouded in secrecy: "on the evening of her death she was buried in the courtyard of Cape Coast Castle . The grave was dug by torchlight amid a pitiless torrent of rain " (Retrospect, pp. 397–398) .

Mrs. Hall and I strove to raise money to place a monument there; but objection was made, and the project was abandoned. Lady Blessington directed a slab to be placed at her expense on the wall. That, also, was objected to. But her husband, for very shame, at last permitted it to be done, and a mural table records that in that African courtyard rests all that is mortal of Letitia Elizabeth Maclean. (Retrospect, p. 398)

This is another example of the disinformation being circulated at the time, see above, and in fact the immediate burial was due to the climate and all the European residents attended with William Topp reading the funeral service. The sudden tropical rainstorm came subsequently during the preparation of the grave. Blanchard states that

It was the immediate wish of Mr. Maclean to place above this grave a suitable memorial, and his desire was expressed in the earliest letter which he sent to England; but we believe that some delay took place in the execution of the order he issued, from the necessity of referring back to the Coast for information as to the intended site of the monument, in order that it might be prepared accordingly. "A handsome marble tablet" is now, it appears, on its way to Cape Coast, to be erected in the castle.

Neither Hall nor Lady Blessington had any part in it, although Lady Blessington was hoping to erect a memorial in Brompton.

Character sketches

Landon's appearance and personality were described by a number of her friends and contemporaries:

Emma Roberts, from her introduction to "The Zenana and other works":

L.E.L. could not be, strictly speaking, called handsome; her eyes being the only good feature in a countenance, which was, however, so animated, and lighted up with such intellectual expression, as to be exceedingly attractive. Gay and piquant, her clear complexion, dark hair, and eyes, rendered her, when in health and spirits, a sparkling brunette. The prettiness of L.E.L., though generally acknowledged, was not talked about; and many persons, on their first introduction, were as pleasingly surprised as the Ettrick Shepherd, who, gazing upon her with great admiration, exclaimed "I did na think ye had been sae bonny." Her figure was slight, and beautifully proportioned, with little hands and feet; and these personal advantages, added to her kind and endearing manners, rendered her exceedingly fascinating.

In truth, she was the most unselfish of human creatures; and it was quite extraordinary to witness her ceaseless consideration for the feelings of others, even in minute trifles, whilst her own mind was probably troubled and oppressed; a sweet disposition, so perfectly amiable, from Nature's fount, and so unalterable in its manifestations throughout her entire life, that every one who enjoyed her society loved her, and servants, companions, intimates, friends, all united in esteem and affection for the gentle and self-sacrificing being who never exhibited a single trait of egotism, presumption, or unkindliness!

Perhaps the greatest magic she exercised was, that, after the first rush of remembrance of all that wonderful young woman had written had subsided, she rendered you completely oblivious of what she had done by the irresistible charm of what she was. You forgot all about her books, – you only felt the intense delight of life with her; she was penetrating and sympathetic, and entered into your feelings so entirely that you wondered how "the little witch" could read you so readily and so rightly, – and if, now and then, you were startled, perhaps dismayed, by her wit, it was but the prick of a diamond arrow. Words and thoughts that she flung hither and thither, without design or intent beyond the amusement of the moment, come to me still with a mingled thrill of pleasure and pain that I cannot describe, and that my most friendly readers, not having known her, could not understand.

It was her invariable habit to write in her bed-room, – "a homely-looking, almost uncomfortable room, fronting the street, and barely furnished – with a simple white bed, at the foot of which was a small, old, oblong-shaped sort of dressing-table, quite covered with a common worn writing-desk, heaped with papers, while some strewed the ground, the table being too small for aught besides the desk. A little high-backed cane chair, which gave you any idea but that of comfort, and a few books scattered about, completed the author's paraphernalia."

Emma Roberts again:

She not only read, but thoroughly understood, and entered into the merits of every book that came out; while it is merely necessary to refer to her printed works, to calculate the amount of information which she had gathered from preceding authors. The history and literature of all ages and all countries were familiar to her; nor did she acquire any portion of her knowledge in a superficial manner; the extent of her learning, and the depth of her research, manifesting themselves in publications which do not bear her name; her claim to them being only known to friends, who, like myself, had access to her desk, and with whom she knew the secret might be safely trusted.

Her depth of reading is confirmed by Laman Blanchard in his Life, who states:

To those who, looking at the quantity of her published prose and poetry, might wonder how she found time for all these private and unproductive exercises of her pen, it may be desirable to explain, not merely that she wrote, but that she read, with remarkable rapidity. Books, indeed, of the highest character, she would dwell upon with "amorous delay;" but those of ordinary interest, or the nine-day wonders of literature, she would run through in a much shorter space of time than would seem consistent with that thorough understanding of their contents at which she always arrived, or with that accurate observation of the less striking features which she would generally prove to have been bestowed, by reference almost to the very page in which they might be noted. Of some work which she scarcely seemed to have glanced through, she would give an elaborate and succinct account, pointing out the gaps in the plot, or the discrepancies in the characters, and supporting her judgment by all but verbatim quotations.

Other contemporaries also praised Landon's exceptionally high level of intelligence. Fredric Rowton, in The Female Poets of Great Britain, put it thus:

Of Mrs Maclean's genius there can be but one opinion. It is distinguished by very great intellectual power, a highly sensitive and ardent imagination, an intense fervour of passionate emotion, and almost unequalled eloquence and fluency. Of mere art she displays but little. Her style is irregular and careless, and her painting sketchy and rough but there is genius in every line she has written.

(Like many others, Rowton is deceived by the artistry of Landon's projection of herself as the improvisatrice, L. E. L. As Glennis Stevenson writes, few poets have been as artificial as Landon in her "gushing stream of Song". She cites the usage of repetition, mirroring and the embedding of texts amongst the techniques that account for the characteristic intensity of Landon's poetry.)

The Life of Forgotten Poet Letitia Elizabeth Landon

She was known as the “female Byron.” So why doesn’t anyone read L.E.L. anymore?

The newly published biography L.E.L.: The Lost Life and Scandalous Death of Letitia Elizabeth Landon, the Celebrated “Female Byron,” written by literary critic Lucasta Miller, dives deep into the life of Letitia Elizabeth Landon. The book covers recent revelations about the poet, examining her legacy through a modern lens.

Landon was writing in Romantic-era England. She published novels and essays, but was known mostly for her sentimental romantic poetry, which appeared in literary annuals and magazines; in 1820, when she was 18, her first poem was published in London’s Literary Gazette. The following year, she published a book of poetry, The Fate of Adelaide, which sold well. Her work was attributed only to “L.E.L.,” and when her first poems were released her readers were fascinated by the mysterious poet. There was much speculation as to who the poet behind the initials might be before Landon was revealed as the writer. Literature scholar Glennis Stephenson notes that her poetry contained euphemisms for sex, allusions to passionate love, and “erotically suggestive images.” According to Stephenson, Landon purposefully created her writing persona, L.E.L., as a “poetic construction,” and was always keenly aware of the differences between L.E.L. and her actual self, even if her readers were not.

Her poetry contained euphemisms for sex, allusions to passionate love, and “erotically suggestive images.”

Landon understood instinctively her role as a female writer, and played with her audience’s perceptions. Through her poems’ narrators, she molded her image into what would be acceptable and appealing to the public, which in turn rewarded her with more attention. Literature scholar Jonas Cope writes, “Her interest, perhaps obsession, with the plight of personal interiority in a world of stifling fashionable exteriors makes sense when we consider that she rose to fame shortly after the ascension of George IV to the British throne.”

L.E.L. was considered a “poetess.” This gendered term for literary women of the Romantic era was a way to patronize their work as soon as it gained fame. Society and the literary critics of the time demanded a specific construction of female beauty, intelligence, and manner in which women should conduct themselves in public. Landon recognized the role of the female writer in her time and, since she needed to make a living, she took advantage. She had a keen understanding of the market and wrote what would sell. Cope goes on to write that this was why her poetry consisted of popular themes like love, death, and beauty.

Many critics argue that Landon fell victim to the literary market and only wrote to cater to a popular taste formed by the masses, never developing her own voice. Cope, however, disagrees: “[Landon] manipulates market forces to her own advantage. Doing so empowers her as a woman writer and literary entrepreneur.” Landon had agency over the work she was giving the audience and found power in it. In an 1832 article for The New Monthly Magazine, she wrote that the “best and most popular…poetry makes its appeal to the higher and better feelings of our nature.”

Reputation

Among the poets of her own time to recognise and admire Landon were Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who wrote "L.E.L.'s Last Question" in homage; and Christina Rossetti, who published a tribute poem entitled "L.E.L" in her 1866 volume The Prince's Progress and Other Poems.

Landon's reputation, while high in the 19th century, fell during most of the 20th as literary fashions changed: her poetry was perceived (without any actual examination) as overly simple and sentimental. However, such criticism had already been addressed by Sarah Sheppard in her "Characteristics of the Genius and Writings of L E L" of 1841. Her opening paragraph runs:

Because they whose decision it is, are subjects of the superficial spirit of the age, which leaves them unacquainted with all of which it appoints them judges. Because, either from a dislike of trouble, or inability to pursue the inquiry, these judges never deviate from their own beaten right line to observe how genius acts and is acted upon,—how it is influenced, and what effects it produces on society. Hence the mistaken opinions concerning literary characters one is often compelled to hear from those who, it is to be feared, know little of what they affirm; and of literary works from those who, it is also to be feared, are not competent to decide on their merits. It is indeed strange with what decision people set their seal of condemnation on volumes beyond whose title-pages they have scarcely looked.

In recent years, scholars and critics have increasingly studied her work, beginning with Germaine Greer in the 1970s and critics such as Isobel Armstrong argue that the supposed simplicity of poetry such as Landon's is deceptive, and that women poets of the 19th century often employed a method of writing which allows for multiple, concurrent levels of meaning. McMullen argues that Landon, although she wrote about what would sell—romance, sensuality, vicariousness, etc, and plays the role of the imitator, actually uses genealogical subversion underneath her words to canonize herself. In mistranslation and retranslation of already quickly canonized Romantic male poets, Landon establishes herself among and even beyond their accomplishments.

Her ideas and the diversity of her poetry engendered a "Landon School", in England but also in America. As for style, William Howitt comments: "This is one singular peculiarity of the poetry of L. E. L.; and her poetry must be confessed to be peculiar. It is entirely her own. It had one prominent and fixed character, and that character belonged solely to itself. The rhythm, the feeling, the style and phraseology of L. E. L.'s poetry, were such, that you could immediately recognize it, though the writer's name was not mentioned."

A tribute in The Literary Gazette, following Landon's death, ran:

To express what we feel on her loss is impossible – and private sorrows of so deep a kind are not for public display: her name will descend to the most distant times, as one of the brightest in the annals of English literature; and whether after ages look at the glowing purity and nature of her first poems, or the more sustained thoughtfulness and vigour of her later works, in prose or in verse, they will cherish her memory as that of one of the most beloved of female authors, the pride and glory of our country while she lived, and the undying delight of succeeding generations. Then, as in our day, young hearts will beat responsive to the thrilling touch of her music; her song of love will find a sacred home in many a fair and ingenuous bosom; her numbers, which breathed of the finest humanities, her playfulness of spirit, and her wonderful delineation of character and society – all – all will be admired, but not lamented as now. She is gone; and, oh, what a light of mind is extinguished: what an amount of friendship and of love has gone down into the grave 

148-] English Literature

148-] English Literature 

Letitia Elizabeth Landon - Summary

 

Letitia Elizabeth Landon , (born Aug. 14, 1802, London, Eng.—died Oct. 15, 1838, Gold Coast Colony [now Ghana]), English poet and novelist who , at a time when women were conventionally restricted in their themes, wrote of passionate love. She is remembered for her high-spirited social life and mysterious death and for verse that reveals her lively intelligence and emotional intensity.

Landon’s first volume of verse came out in 1821; it and the eight collections that followed were extremely popular, and she was in great demand as a contributor to magazines and giftbooks, annuals produced in the 1820s and ’30s as gifts for ladies. Her four novels, published in 1831–42, were also successful.

Landon captivated London society by her wayward charm. Her engagement to John Forster, a journalist and man of letters, ended unhappily. In 1838 she married George Maclean, then chief administrator of the Cape Coast settlement (now in Ghana). She died of poisoning, presumably by accident, soon after her arrival in Africa.

 

147-] English Literature

147-] English Literature

Thomas Love Peacock 

Literary Career

Thomas Love Peacock was an accomplished poet, essayist, opera critic, and satiric novelist. During his lifetime his works received the approbation of other writers (some of whom were Peacock’s friends and the targets of his satire), literary critics (many of whom were simply his targets), and a notoriously vocal reading public. Today, Peacock’s reputation rests almost exclusively on the merits of his seven novels, four of which—Headlong Hall, Melincourt, Nightmare Abbey, and Maid Marian—appeared in quick succession between 1815 and 1822. The remaining three—The Misfortunes of Elphin, Crotchet Castle, and Gryll Grange—were written and published at more leisurely intervals, Gryll Grange not appearing until 1861, five years before Peacock’s death. Peacock’s novels record the intellectual, social, economic, and literary discussions (sometimes battles) of early 19th-century England. They are, in one sense, “conversation novels,” and many of the characters who take part in the various conversations were modeled after the leading personalities of Peacock’s day. Peacock’s novels have lost none of their appeal, however, for the subjects they address continue to inform the political and social dialogues. Their comedy still delights readers, and the conversations never go for long without a pause for comic action or comment.

 At age six, Peacock entered a school at Englefield Green, then kept by John Harris Wicks. Several of the verse letters he wrote to family members during this time show an early interest and ability in social satire. Peacock seems to have been content at school and managed to impress his master, but the six years he spent at Englefield Green constituted Peacock’s first and only formal education. By February 1800, Peacock was working as a clerk for the merchant house of Ludlow, Fraser, and Co. in London, but he remained in their employment only briefly. He began writing poems and incidental essays at this time, and in late 1805, Palmyra, his first collection of poems, was published and well received. The title poem, a study of apocalyptic ruin, represents Peacock’s attempt at serious, learned poetry written in the style of his 18th-century forebears.

 Shortly after the publication of Palmyra, Peacock became engaged to Fanny Falkner, a young woman from his neighborhood of Chertsey. The couple’s engagement, which the interference of one of Miss Falkner’s relatives soon brought to an end, was later recounted in the poem “Newark Abbey” (written in 1842). In 1808 Peacock served briefly as under secretary to Adm. Sir Home Popham aboard the HMS Venerable, which never left the harbor while Peacock was on board. The nature of his duties is not clear, but he was happy to go ashore after some six months to begin a walking tour of the Thames, soon afterward recounted in The Genius of the Thames (1810), an ode in two parts. The poem represents Peacock’s attempt to describe the river and all that it means to him and to England. The tour of the Thames was followed by a journey to Wales, where Peacock finished his poem and met Jane Gryffydh, daughter of a Welsh parson. Peacock would propose marriage to her eight years later, but for the time being his mind seems to have been on poetry, which he continued to write and publish.

 In October or November of 1812, Peacock met Percy Bysshe Shelley, who would soon come to depend on Peacock as a friend and as a literary critic/assistant. Shelley seems to have admired Peacock’s poetry (especially Palmyra), despite the marked differences in the two poets’ subjects and techniques. By this time Peacock had one more major poem, The Philosophy of Melancholy (1812), to his credit. As Peacock explains in his prefatory “General Analysis,” the poem argues that contemplating mutability ennobles the mind, and that art and human relationships derive their “principal charms” and “endearing ties” from a philosophical consideration of mutability. Meanwhile the friendship of Peacock and Shelley continued to grow, and Peacock continued to write and to experiment with new subjects and literary forms. Two plays, The Dilettanti and The Three Doctors, neither of which was published or produced during Peacock’s lifetime, were probably written during this time. A much more successful venture was Sir Hornbook (1813), subtitled A Grammatico-Allegorical Ballad, which provided instruction in grammar for children. Its hero, Childe Launcelot, conquers the parts of speech with the assistance of Sir Hornbook as they travel toward an understanding of language and prosody. The book went through five illustrated editions in five years, thanks to Peacock’s talent for making grammar fun.

 Peacock continued to travel, returning to Wales in 1813. At this time he was at work on two poems: the unfinished mythological epic Ahrimanes, written in Spenserian stanzas; and Sir Proteus, published in March 1814. The latter is a satiric attack on Robert Southey, the poet laureate, whose career Peacock had followed with some interest for several years. William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Walter Scott, and the periodical press also undergo satiric correction in Sir Proteus, but the focus of this pseudolearned poem is Southey, whose poems, Peacock’s persona argues, are written without reference to taste, nature, or conscience. Shortly after the publication of Sir Proteus, Peacock learned of Shelley’s elopement with Mary Godwin, daughter of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft. Two weeks after the elopement, Shelley wrote a letter to his wife, Harriet, inviting her to join them on the Continent. In the same letter Shelley told Harriet that he had asked Peacock to look after her financial needs. Peacock evidently did as he was asked, motivated in part by his sympathy for Harriet and in part by his esteem for his friend.

In a quieter time, in 1795, Peacock had begun a letter to his mother with these lines: “DEAR MOTHER, I attempt to write you a letter/In verse, tho’ in prose, I could do it much better.” It would take Peacock 20 years to try his skill at prose fiction, but inevitably he did so, and with important and far-reaching results. In 1815, with the Shelleys back in London and living near enough to make regular visits possible, Peacock began working on his first novel, Headlong Hall, published later that year. With its reliance upon characters who embody “opinions,” its use of the country-house setting, its frequent departures into dramatic conversation, and its satiric intent, Headlong Hall proved to be much better than any of Peacock’s still commendable poetic productions. This first novel was also to be the prototype for the majority of Peacock’s later novels, for in subsequent works he modified, but never completely abandoned, the formula of Headlong Hall.

The novel is set at the country estate of Squire Harry Headlong, an individual who, “unlike other Welsh squires ... had actually suffered certain phenomena, called books, to find their way into his house.” Squire Headlong’s thirst for knowledge takes him to Oxford in search of philosophers and men of taste, but he is told that none reside there. The disappointed squire decides to transform his well-stocked home into a meeting place for such individuals. His most important guests are Mr. Foster, a “perfectibilian”; Mr. Escot, a “deteriorationist”; Mr. Jenkison, a “statu-quo-ite”; and Reverend Dr. Gaster, an individual whose principal talent is eating well.

Peacock’s characters agree on virtually nothing. They are not supposed to agree or for that matter to modify their own particular prejudices, to convince their listeners to change their views, or to take any real offense at the insults hurled at them from all sides. Their disagreements bring to life the purpose of the novel, which is announced on the title page:

                             All philosophers, who find

                             Some favourite system to their mind,

                             In every point to make it fit,

                              Will force all nature to submit .

The arguments commence on the first page of the novel and address topics that range from the ridiculous to the truly significant. A remark that “the day was none of the finest” occasions the response, “quite the contrary.” Breakfast affords the characters an opportunity to argue about whether animal products should be included in an Englishman’s diet. Next, the grounds of Headlong Hall provide the occasion for a dialogue on whether natural or artistically landscaped gardens are superior. The novel thus begins innocently with characters discussing subjects of questionable significance but bristling with satiric undertones. His audience won, Peacock turns to the more substantive issues.

 During the winter of 1815-1816, Peacock and Shelley continued to visit and to read Greek together. Peacock also began working on The Round Table; or, King Arthur’s Feast (1817), a children’s poem that outlines the history of English royalty. Peacock’s principal literary interests at this time, however, were two prose pieces: Calidore, an unfinished novel based upon Arthurian legends; and Melincourt (1817), an ambitious and highly topical novel written with the same spirit and with much the same intent as Headlong Hall.

 In a much more leisurely way than Headlong Hall, Melincourt treats subjects such as original versus modern man, literary tastes, and the education of women, but the attention given to other ideas and controversies shows that Peacock was not simply out to rewrite his first novel. Melincourt, like Headlong Hall, includes a host of characters who contribute to both the serious and the not-so-serious moments in the novel. Peacock’s characters—whether they represent serious thinkers who clearly have won their author’s approval or strategically placed buffoons—all play parts in bringing to life the purpose of the novel, which is to expose social flaws and to show that individuals can and do change. In achieving this purpose, Melincourt offers fewer pauses for comedy than Headlong Hall and devotes most of its attention to arguments that are longer, more serious, and more complex than the arguments in the earlier novel. Without going so far as to say that Melincourt is a serious book, one may say that its comedy is subservient to its social ideas and purposes in a degree that the comedy in Headlong Hall is not.

After publishing Melincourt in three volumes in 1817, Peacock turned once more to verse and to his considerable knowledge of classical poetry. The result, published in February 1818, was Rhododaphne, a Greek love poem written in ode form and concerned with the traditional theme of supernatural interference in earthly love. Peacock enjoyed Mary Shelley’s assistance with the transcription of the text and Percy Shelley’s praise. George Gordon, Lord Byron, also found merit in Peacock’s poem. Thus Peacock was beginning to win recognition in the literary world (John Keats, however, seemed not to like him). During the revision of his Laon and Cynthia (1817), Shelley actually solicited Peacock’s help. Peacock was not, however, making much of a living by his writing and was by this time receiving some financial support from Shelley. This fact, along with others, may help to explain Mary Shelley’s usual indifference to and occasional dislike for Peacock. On one occasion, for example, she referred to Peacock and Thomas Jefferson Hogg as members of Shelley’s “menagerie.” For his part, Peacock seems always to have kept the Shelleys’ interests in mind and was instrumental in securing Mary Shelley’s financial comfort following the death of her husband.

Not surprisingly, the Shelleys and their penchant for reform eventually proved to be irresistible subjects waiting for Peacock to translate into the medium of satiric fiction. With two satiric novels to his credit, Peacock was ready to try his skill once again. The result was Nightmare Abbey, which Peacock offered to the public in October 1818. By far Peacock’s least serious novel, Nightmare Abbey concerns the unhappy love interests of one Scythrop Glowry, as those interests take shape at various times in the persons of Miss Marionetta O’Carroll and Miss Celinda Toobad. One must approach with caution the idea that these characters represent deliberate portraits of Percy Shelley, his first wife, Harriet, and Mary Shelley. However, most readers of Peacock now agree with the editors of the Halliford Edition of Peacock’s Works: “To regard Scythrop and his ladies as deliberate portraits, even of persons unknown to the public, would be as absurd as to ignore the resemblances.”

The resemblances are, at the very least, thought provoking. Scythrop, whenever he is not moping in his tower over one woman or another (and he spends most of his time doing just that), gives vent to his “passion for reforming the world.” He writes a pamphlet titled “Philosophical Gas; or, a Project for a General Illumination of the Human Mind.” This “deep scheme for a thorough repair of the crazy fabric of human nature” sells a total of seven copies.

While Scythrop may bear some resemblance to Peacock’s friend Shelley, the satire in Nightmare Abbey is never allowed to cut very deep. Although he might easily have done so, Peacock does not encourage his readers to take anyone in this novel very seriously; the seriousness of Melincourt is nowhere to be found in Nightmare Abbey. In its place one finds good-natured satire and comedy for the sake of laughter. Even Shelley, who read the novel in Italy, offered words of praise for its ability to amuse in a June 1819 letter to Peacock: “I am delighted with Nightmare Abbey. I think Scythrop a character admirably conceived & executed & I know not how to praise sufficiently the lightness chastity & strength of the language of the whole.”

The periodical press responded with similar praise in the Literary Gazette (12 December 1818) and the Monthly Review (November 1819). Like Shelley, Byron found amusement in his caricature and asked Shelley to pass along his admiration to Peacock.

The literary world apparently liked the way Peacock wrote about its living practitioners in Nightmare Abbey, and Peacock continued to indulge his own sort of fascination with that world. In fact, during July 1818, Peacock began to look more closely at it and started to apply some shape to his thoughts with the “Essay on Fashionable Literature.” This essay remained unfinished and was never published in Peacock’s lifetime. The part that survives represents the beginning of what probably would have been a full-scale attack aimed at exposing the many forms of dishonesty upon which Peacock felt periodical writing was based. The final part of the surviving fragment is devoted to Peacock’s rebuttal of an Edinburgh Review essay that had found fault, and very little else, in Coleridge’s Christabel (1816). As the several caricatures of Coleridge elsewhere in Peacock’s writings show, Peacock himself had found ideas and techniques not to his liking in Coleridge’s writings. Nevertheless, the many reviews and quarterlies of Peacock’s day represented, in his estimation, true enemies of truth and therefore irresistible targets.

While Peacock was preparing, and eventually laying aside, the “Essay on Fashionable Literature,” he was also busy at work on his next novel, Maid Marian (1822). Even this project came to a halt, however, as Peacock’s energies were diverted to two nonliterary pursuits. The first was his employment, commencing in January 1819, as assistant to the examiner at the India House, where he would continue to work his way up through positions of increasing responsibility until his retirement in 1856. Another assistant appointed in 1819 was the Utilitarian philosopher and historian of British India James Mill, then 46. Mill’s son, John Stuart Mill, joined the India House in 1823.

Around this time, Peacock proposed to Jane Gryffydh, whom he had met on his tour of Wales in 1811. Peacock had neither seen nor corresponded with his future wife since 1811, but the proposal, which he made by mail, was nevertheless accepted, and the couple was married on March 20, 1820. Peacock continued his employment at the India House, and in April 1821 he passed his probationary period and received an increase in salary from 600 to 800 pounds per year. Literature was never far from his mind, and at various times Shelley called upon him to read and correct proofs of several poems.

 

Peacock, of course, felt that modern poetry needed more correction than a mere reading of proofs could provide, and in November 1820 his “The Four Ages of Poetry” appeared in the first (and last) number of Ollier’s Literary Miscellany. Shelley escapes the ridicule leveled at “that egregious confraternity of rhymesters, known by the name of the Lake Poets,” all of whom, maintains Peacock, are “studiously ignorant of history, society, and human nature.” Peacock’s thesis is that modern poetry abounds in everything poetically bad and sorely lacks everything poetically good. His argument that modern poetry is merely derivative, and badly so, is a clear challenge to the often-professed belief of the Romantic poets that their work represented something new. Shelley quickly answered Peacock’s challenge with his “Defence of Poetry,” but this essay, intended for the next number of Ollier’s Literary Miscellany, did not appear in print until 1840.

In July 1821 Peacock’s first child, Mary Ellen, was born. Peacock continued to pursue his work at the India House and soon returned to the writing project he had postponed in 1818. Maid Marian, Peacock’s fourth novel, was published in April 1822. Based in part upon Joseph Ritson’s anonymous Robin Hood (1795), Maid Marian was written, according to Peacock, in order to cast “oblique satire on all the oppressions that are done under the sun.” The novel does not quite live up to its author’s ambitious aims, but Maid Marian does provide readers with a brief look at an alternative society, however unattainable that society may be.

The story takes its direction from the main characters’ involvement in two major pursuits. The first follows the Sheriff of Nottingham, Prince John, and Sir Ralph Montfaucon (an agent for King Henry) as they chase Robin Hood through Sherwood Forest in order to prosecute him for his various “crimes” against various authorities. The second pursuit follows Sir Ralph, Prince John, and Robin Hood as they vie for the hand of Matilda Fitzwater, daughter of the local baron, and known as Maid Marian in the society of Sherwood Forest. Only Robin Hood has a hope of obtaining this independent young lady, for Maid Marian, who is as skilled with words as she is with a bow and arrow, is not one to be intimidated by princes or barons, or by the power that they wrongly seek to exercise over others. She is, moreover, as Matilda Fitzwater, engaged to be married to her one true love, Robert, Earl of Huntingdon, also known as Robin Hood.

Peacock seems to be suggesting that individuals can and should try to emulate that which is noble in his two “outlaws,” Robin and Marian, but he does so even while showing that their society is unrealistic and comically anarchistic. In other words, the foresters’ laws provide a fitting retaliation to the various wrongdoings of the evil Prince John, but they are no answer to the complex problems facing any real society. The “principles” of their society have several obvious shortcomings. The foresters proclaim their government to be “legitimate” and follow this proclamation with another stating that all English laws, except for those that they deem convenient to obey, are null and void. Peacock’s readers would have recognized that most tyrannous reigns begin with similar announcements. The foresters’ system of “Equity” shows a similar susceptibility to abuse. They steal from the rich, but the poor receive only “a portion thereof as it may seem to us expedient to part with.” In order to avoid all of the nastiness associated with stealing, the foresters “invite” their “guests” to pay for their dinners. The foresters’ internal politics include unmistakable double meanings, for example: “In all cases a quorum of foresters shall constitute a court of equity, and as many as may be strong enough to manage the matter in hand shall constitute a quorum.” Like other governments, the forest government has its share of pettiness: No one is allowed to call a forester by his or her given name, and anyone who does so must pay a fine or pay a fee for exemption from the rule to the friar, who has devised this plan for the purpose of enriching himself.

Although it is not “serious” satire in the sense that viable alternatives to social problems are offered, Maid Marian is an engaging and delightfully comic story, full of song and incident. The novel received favorable notices in the periodical press , and on 3 December 1822 an operatic version of the novel, augmented and scored by James Robinson Planché, was produced at Covent Garden theater. The opera ran for 28 performances in 14 months, received critical acclaim, and inspired an American production in 1824. The opera did not do well in America, however, and closed after one night at the Park Theatre in New York.

Peacock’s enjoyment of the success of Maid Marian must have been tempered by a tragic event that occurred in the same year. On July 8, 1822 Percy Bysshe Shelley drowned off the coast of Italy. Peacock immediately began efforts to assist Mary Shelley in obtaining financial support from Shelley’s father, Sir Timothy Shelley, who had always disapproved strongly of his son’s manner of living. Peacock was successful in bringing the two parties to an agreement, despite their mutual dislike and many differences of opinion, receiving praise from both Mary and Sir Timothy for his efforts.

The 1820s were an especially active time for Peacock. In March 1823, a second daughter, Margaret Love Peacock, was born. In the same year Peacock purchased two cottages at Halliford and moved his young family and his mother there. The happy times at Halliford did not last long, however, for in January 1826, just two months short of her third birthday, Margaret Love Peacock died. Shortly afterward, the Peacocks adopted Mary Rosewell, a young girl from the neighborhood, but Jane Peacock’s happiness proved to be only temporary. The death of Margaret triggered a mental breakdown in Jane Peacock that grew worse with time. She remained a nervous invalid until her death in 1851.

Despite these hardships, Peacock continued to prosper in his work at the India House. Through his colleague James Mill, he met the philosopher Jeremy Bentham, with whom he dined weekly for many years. Peacock also began writing literary review essays for publication in the Westminster Review. He would later write for several of the other leading journals on subjects ranging from steam navigation (one of his projects at the India House) to French literature. By the middle of the decade Peacock was at work on Paper Money Lyrics, his last collection of poetry, which was not published until 1837. During the years 1830-1834, Peacock busied himself with writing many operatic reviews for two periodicals, the Globe and the Examiner.

In February 1829 the Literary Gazette announced the impending publication of Peacock’s next novel, The Misfortunes of Elphin. The novel is concerned with political/social reform, but Peacock never forces the idea of 19th-century reform any further than the 6th-century Welsh setting will comfortably allow. In other words The Misfortunes of Elphin is a pleasant little story that is richly endowed with careful depictions of Welsh history and custom and that incidentally, though quite deliberately, uses the past in order to reveal some of the weaknesses of modern society. The book received critical praise both for its satire and for its depiction of life in ancient Wales.

While Peacock was engaged in writing opera reviews and other periodical essays, he was also composing his next novel, Crotchet Castle, published in 1831. Peacock’s attention was, as always, divided among his several responsibilities, and while working on Crotchet Castle he was also studying the idea of regular steamship service between Great Britain and India (he submitted his findings to Parliament in 1834) and supervising the construction and fitting of steamships, several of which were designed to his specifications. Peacock evidently carried out his duties with great success, prompting one acquaintance to remark, “Mr. Peacock was meant for an Admiral.”

As Carl Dawson has noted, Crotchet Castle marks Peacock’s return “from the world of romance to the world of talk.” The method of Crotchet Castle closely resembles the design of Headlong Hall, Nightmare Abbey, and Melincourt, with the arguments of characters (or caricatures) once more taking precedence over the love story, which once again ends with wedding bells. Crotchet Castle, like its predecessors, is the stage for a dozen or so “bubble-blowers,” or characters who embody opinions, but Peacock’s two main concerns in this novel are the unscrupulous business practices made possible by a paper-money economy and the problems associated with the “march of mind,” one of the ideologies of the reform movement of the 1830s that promoted education for all.

During the years following the publication of Crotchet Castle several changes took place in Peacock’s life. In 1833 his mother died. Sarah Love Peacock had lived with her son and his family for many years, and Peacock had come to rely upon her as a literary collaborator. Her advice concerning his longer works was usually solicited and accepted. Peacock wrote little between 1834 and 1838, and published nothing from 1838 until 1851. Family cares and a promotion to the position of examiner at the India House allowed little time for literary pursuits. Happiness visited the family briefly in 1844 with Mary Ellen Peacock’s marriage to Navy Lieutenant Edward Nicolls. Three months later, however, Nicolls was lost at sea and presumably drowned. Mary Ellen later gave birth to a daughter, Edith, who in later years assisted Peacock’s first editors in assembling her grandfather’s writings and reminiscences.

In 1851 Peacock, with the assistance of Mary Ellen, who in 1849 had married author George Meredith, wrote “Gastronomy and Civilization,” which appeared in the December number of Fraser’s Magazine. Shortly afterward Peacock published two sections of the three-part “Horae Dramticae,” a series of reminiscences of the drama, in Fraser’s Magazine (March and April 1852). Peacock approached the work with leisure, the final part appearing more than a year after his retirement from the India House in March 1856. Shortly after the publication of the last installment in October 1857, Mary Ellen, unhappy from the start with her marriage to Meredith, fled to Capri with painter Henry Wallis. Peacock never saw her again. In 1861, having returned to England alone, she died. Peacock did not attend her funeral.

In 1858, inspired by the publication of what he considered erroneous accounts of Shelley’s life, Peacock began working on the periodical pieces known collectively as the “Memoirs of Percy Bysshe Shelley,” the first of which appeared in the June 1858 issue of Fraser’s Magazine. Peacock then decided to suspend work on his memoir until Thomas Jefferson Hogg completed his work on Shelley’s life, but the furor raised over Hogg’s work persuaded Peacock to continue his project. Peacock’s account of Shelley’s life—which continued in the January and March 1860 issues of Fraser’s, with a “Supplementary Notice” in March 1862—is drawn largely from personal knowledge and is considered by most scholars to be objective, yet guarded in its treatment of Shelley’s more irrational acts and ideas.

Peacock’s main literary interest at this time was Gryll Grange, which appeared serially from April through December 1860 in Fraser’s Magazine. This novel, which was to be Peacock’s last, was published as a book in February 1861. Gryll Grange closely resembles Peacock’s other novels in both its spirit and its design, but the satire and the story are developed more gradually than in any of his earlier novels. Gryll Grange also shows an approach to character different (and some believe more realistic) from that in Peacock’s previous fiction. The main characters, and many of the minor ones, are multidimensional in ways that their earlier counterparts are not: they enjoy full lives that have nothing to do with their opinions on social matters. In other words, the characters are free to live day to day and to engage in “discussion[s] on everything that presents itself.”

Gryll Grange received favorable notices. Peacock wrote Gryll Grange during an active period in which he also began, but eventually set aside, at least three prose tales. His last published work was the prose translation (1862) of an anonymous Italian play of the 1530s, Gl’ Ingannati, which appeared in 1862. Peacock wrote nothing after this date, preferring to spend his days quietly, and preferably without visitors, in his library at Lower Halliford. He was troubled in his last years by an intestinal ailment. He died on 23 January 1866 and was buried in the New Cemetery at Shepperton.

An early discussion of Peacock’s work—a review of Nightmare Abbey published in the Literary Gazette for December 1818—enunciates a concern that is still voiced by Peacock’s readers and critics: “It would be difficult to say what his books are,” wrote the anonymous reviewer, “for they are neither romances, novels, tales, nor treatises, but a mixture of all these combined.” Yet Peacock remains important today not only because his novels are among the best of their type, but because the issues they address are universal. To read Peacock’s best novels is to be reminded of the universality of human action and thought and of how susceptible to ridicule and/or revision the supposed triumphs of humanity really are.

Works

Peacock's own place in literature is pre-eminently that of a satirist. That he has nevertheless been the favourite only of the few is owing partly to the highly intellectual quality of his work,[citation needed] but mainly to his lack of ordinary qualifications of the novelist, all pretension to which he entirely disclaims. He has no plot, little human interest, and no consistent delineation of character. His personages are mere puppets, or, at best, incarnations of abstract qualities such as grace or beauty, but beautifully depicted.

His comedy combines the mock-Gothic with the Aristophanic. He suffers from that dramatist's faults and, though not as daring in invention or as free in the use of sexual humour, shares many of his strengths. His greatest intellectual love is for Ancient Greece, including late and minor works such as the Dionysiaca of Nonnus; many of his characters are given punning names taken from Greek to indicate their personality or philosophy.

He tended to dramatize where traditional novelists narrated; he is more concerned with the interplay of ideas and opinions than of feelings and emotions; his dramatis personae is more likely to consist of a cast of more or less equal characters than of one outstanding hero or heroine and a host of minor auxiliaries; his novels have a tendency to approximate the Classical unities, with few changes of scene and few if any subplots; his novels are novels of conversation rather than novels of action; in fact, Peacock is so much more interested in what his characters say to one another than in what they do to one another that he often sets out entire chapters of his novels in dialogue form. Plato's Symposium is the literary ancestor of these works, by way of the Deipnosophists of Athenaeus, in which the conversation relates less to exalted philosophical themes than to the points of a good fish dinner.

Novels

Headlong Hall (published 1815 but dated 1816) [revised slightly, 1837] , Melincourt (1817) ,Nightmare Abbey (1818) [revised slightly, 1837] , Maid Marian (1822) , The Misfortunes of Elphin (1829) ,Crotchet Castle (1831) [revised slightly, 1837] , Gryll Grange (1861) [serialised first during 1860]

Verse

The Monks of St. Mark (1804) ,Palmyra and other Poems (1805) , The Genius of the Thames: a Lyrical Poem (1810) ,The Genius of the Thames Palmyra and other Poems (1812) ,The Philosophy of Melancholy (1812) , Sir Hornbook, or Childe Launcelot's Expedition (1813) ,Sir Proteus: a Satirical Ballad (1814)

The Round Table, or King Arthur's Feast (1817) ,Rhododaphne: or the Thessalian Spirit (1818) , Paper Money Lyrics (1837) , "The War-Song of Dinas Vawr" (in The Misfortunes of Elphin, 1829)

 Essays

The Four Ages of Poetry (1820) ,Recollections of Childhood: The Abbey House (1837) , Memoirs of Shelley (1858–62) , The Last Day of Windsor Forest (1887) [composed 1862] , Prospectus: Classical Education

Plays

The Three Doctors , The Dilettanti , Gl'Ingannati, or The Deceived (translated from the Italian, 1862) , Unfinished tales and novels , Satyrane (c. 1816) , Calidore (c. 1816) , The Pilgrim of Provence (c. 1826) , The Lord of the Hills (c. 1835) , Julia Procula (c. 1850) , A Story Opening at Chertsey (c. 1850) , A Story of a Mansion among the Chiltern Hills (c. 1859) , Boozabowt Abbey (c. 1859) , Cotswald Chace (c. 1860)