Scan barcode
A review by readingoverbreathing
L.E.L.: The Lost Life and Scandalous Death of Letitia Elizabeth Landon, the Celebrated “Female Byron” by Lucasta Miller
4.0
I picked this book up several months ago in a charity shop where, for whatever reason, they had several brand new copies of it for a fraction of its trade price. For such a good deal, and such an intriguing premise, I simply couldn't resist — I do love a good tell-all literary biography.
I myself had never heard of L.E.L. but I was very much ready to learn, and Lucasta Miller had plenty of research to share. Seriously, her efforts here were exhaustive — where the trail often ran cold with L.E.L., she would often find some other figure or trivia to fill in the gaps. Thus, you get a very comprehensive picture of the London literary scenes from the 1820s through to the early Victorians. Miller often indulged in asides connecting the literary dots between famous people; somehow during this time, almost everyone in London was only a few degrees from Dickens. I found this a fun part of the reading experience, particularly if your knowledge of nineteenth-century English literature is up to speed, but there were times where it seemed to get in the way of her analysis, particularly in the last chapter when she seemed to only want to talk about Charlotte Brontë.
One thing that really bothered me about Miller's analysis was that she was usually all too keen to make assumptions and draw conclusions about the emotional states and motivations of those whose lives she analyzes. If my English degree has taught me anything, it's that we don't try to read an author too much into their text, but Miller did that almost constantly here, and not just with L.E.L.
Overall, though, I really enjoyed this. It was a book, somehow seemingly rare these days, that made me excited to sit down with it to find out just where the story was going to go next. Miller really structures this beautifully — she gives away the ending from the very first page, but leaves the reader constantly guessing as to what exactly got Letitia Landon to that point. Like I said before, this book is well-researched but doesn't skimp on the scandal and thus the fun; it's a perfect pick-me-up for an English literature scholar like myself, something that draws on your knowledge and appreciation for the time period but without bearing down academically.