Page "Letitia Elizabeth Landon" Paragraph 3

An agricultural depression soon followed, and the family moved back to London in 1815, where John Landon made the acquaintance of William Jerdan, editor of the Literary Gazette.

According to 19th-century commentator Mrs A. T. Thomson, Jerdan took notice of the young 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 encouraged Landon's poetic endeavors, 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, never received any profits, as the publisher went out of business shortly thereafter.

The same month that The Fate of Adelaide appeared, Landon published two poems under the initials " L. E. L.

" in 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 curiousity.

" Bulwer Lytton wrote that, as a young college student, he and his classmates would