Born and educated in London, L. E. L. (as she signed her prolific output of poems, stories, and novels) was one of the most popular women writers of the nineteenth century and earned an excellent livelihood from her writings, which she needed to support her parents and siblings. Her historical novel Ethel Churchill (1837) has been thought her best work; it is available in a facsimile edition by Scholars' Facsimiles and Reprints with an introduction by F. J. Sypher (1992; PR 4865 L5E87 Robarts Library). Her affairs with her editors William Jerdan (Literary Gazette) and William Macginn (Fraser's Magazine) marked her with scandal. She married George Maclean in 1838, Governor of Cape Coast Castle (now in Ghana), and travelled there with him, and was found dead from an overdose of prussic acid. For a biography, see her Life and Literary Remains, edited by Laman Blanchard (London: H. Colburn, 1841; B-11 5897 Fisher Library), and Letty Landon by H. Ashton (1951).