"The Fate of Adelaide," a Swiss romantic tale, dedicated to Mrs. Siddons, a story of love, war, and misery, with some minor poems, was published by Mr. Warren, of Bond-street, in a small volume in 1821, when she was about nineteen; and from that period till 1824, a series of "Poetical Sketches," to which were annexed L. E. L. only, appeared in the Literary Gazette, and speedily L. E. L. became a favourite with the public, whose curiosity to penetrate the mystery in which the youthful poetess seemed involved, was enhanced, perhaps, by the singularity of the signature.
The first of her principal poetical works, "The Improvisatrice," appeared in 1824, and in the summer of the succeeding year, followed "The Troubadour," with "Poetical Sketches of Modern Pictures and Historical Sketches," both of which volumes were published by Messrs. Hurst and Robinson.
To her father, whom she lost about this time, Miss Landon seems to have been most enthusiastically attached. He lived long enough to hail the dawn of his daughter's literary fame, and left her to struggle with all the difficulties which surround a young and fascinating female, admired and caressed by some, envied and slandered by others. She thus touchingly alludes to the discomforts of her situation in a letter addressed to her friend Mrs. Thomson in the following year.
"The more I think of my past life, and of my future prospects, the more dreary do they seem. I have known little else than privation, disappointment, unkindness, and harassment; from the time I was fifteen my life has been one continual struggle, in some shape or other, against absolute poverty, and I must say not a
