Letitia Elizabeth Landon
1802 - 1838
Letitia Elizabeth Landon was an English poet and novelist, better known by her initials L.E.L. Her first major breakthrough came with The Improvisatrice and she developed the metrical romance towards the Victorian ideal of the Victorian monologue, influencing fellow English writers such as Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Browning, Alfred Tennyson and Christina Rossetti. Her influence can also be found in the United States, where she was very popular. Edgar Allan Poe regarded her genius as self-evident.