L.E.L.: The Lost Life and Mysterious Death of the 'Female Byron'

Letitia Elizabeth Landon, the female Byron, was found dead in Cape Coast Castle in 1838 with a bottle of prussic acid in her hand. This book explores her life, death, and the mysterious circumstances surrounding her death, revealing a lost literary culture.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 416 pages
Publication date: 03 December 2020
Publisher: Vintage Publishing

A renowned poet, a mysterious death, and a story stranger than fiction. - this is the lost life and mysterious death of the Female Byron.

On 15 October 1838, the body of a thirty-six-year-old woman was found in Cape Coast Castle, West Africa, a bottle of prussic acid in her hand. She was one of the most famous English poets of her day: Letitia Elizabeth Landon, known by her initials L.E.L.

What was she doing in Africa? Was her death an accident? Had she committed suicide, or even been murdered?

To her contemporaries, she was an icon, hailed as the female Byron. However, she was also a woman with secrets, the mother of three illegitimate children whose existence was subsequently wiped from the record. After her death, she became the subject of a cover-up, which this book unravels, excavating with it a whole lost literary culture.

FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE BRONTE MYTH

Weight: 352g
Dimension: 129 x 196 x 30 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780099503590