Book Summary and Reviews of L.E.L. by Lucasta Miller

L.E.L. by Lucasta Miller

L.E.L.

The Lost Life and Scandalous Death of Letitia Elizabeth Landon

by Lucasta Miller

  • Critics' Consensus (0):
  • Published:
  • Mar 2019, 416 pages
  • Rate this book

About this book

Book Summary

A lost nineteenth-century literary life, brilliantly rediscovered - Letitia Elizabeth Landon, hailed as the female Byron; she changed English poetry; her novels, short stories, and criticism, like Byron though in a woman's voice, explored the dark side of sexuality.

"None among us dares to say / What none will choose to hear" - L.E.L., "Lines of Life"

Letitita Elizabeth Landon - pen name L.E.L. - dared to say it and made sure she was heard.

Hers was a life lived in a blaze of scandal and worship, one of the most famous women of her time, the Romantic Age in London's 1820s, her life and writing on the ascendency as Byron's came to an end.

Lucasta Miller tells the full story and re-creates the literary London of her time. She was born in 1802 and was shaped by the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, a time of conservatism when values were in flux. She began publishing poetry in her teens and came to be known as a daring poet of thwarted romantic love. We see L.E.L. as an emblematic figure who embodied a seismic cultural shift, the missing link between the age of Byron and the creation of Victorianism. Miller writes of Jane Eyre as the direct connection to L.E.L. - its first-person confessional voice, its Gothic extremes, its love triangle, and in its emphasis on sadomasochistic romantic passion.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"Starred Review. A thorough, engaging, and even loving restoration of a woman writer whose story needed to be told and whose works required fresh, attentive eyes." - Kirkus

"[W]ith its textured background and lively voice, Miller's biography vividly restores a forgotten author and her faded world, that of the 'strange pause' between the Romantics and the Victorians." - Publishers Weekly

"Suitable for readers interested in Romantic and Victorian poetry as well as those seeking out lost female writers." - Library Journal

This information about L.E.L. was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Lucasta Miller

Lucasta Miller is a British literary critic who has worked for The Independent and The Guardian, and contributed to The Economist, The Times (London), The New Statesman, and the BBC. She was the founding editorial director of Notting Hill Editions and has been a visiting scholar at Wolfson College, Oxford, and a visiting fellow at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. She lives in London with her husband, the tenor Ian Bostridge, and their two children.

More Author Information

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more biography/memoir...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

BookBrowse Book Club

  • Book Jacket
    Becoming Madam Secretary
    by Stephanie Dray
    New York Times bestselling author Stephanie Dray returns with a captivating novel about an American heroine France Perkins—now in paperback!

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Girl Falling
    by Hayley Scrivenor

    The USA Today bestselling author of Dirt Creek returns with a story of grief and truth.

  • Book Jacket

    Jane and Dan at the End of the World
    by Colleen Oakley

    Date Night meets Bel Canto in this hilarious tale.

  • Book Jacket

    The Antidote
    by Karen Russell

    A gripping dust bowl epic about five characters whose fates become entangled after a storm ravages their small Nebraskan town.

Who Said...

Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

T B S of T F

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.