Author. She was an English novelist and poet, who rose to fame in England during the early nineteenth century. She was known as L.E.L. among literary circles. Her works inspired many other poets including Robert Browning and Christina Rossetti, citing her as an influence. Born the oldest of three children, she was noted to be very intelligent, beginning to read at an early age. She was educated mainly at home but did attend a private school in London before her family moved in 1809 to the country but returned to London in 1815. At nine years old, her first published work, the poem "Rome," appeared in the "Literary Gazette" on March 11, 1820. She published the next year her first collection of poems, "The Fate of Adelaide: A Swiss Tale of Romance; and Other Poems," which was a commercial success but the critics did not review it. Her second collection of poetry, "The Improvisatrice, and Other Poems" in 1824 was very popular with six editions in its first year of publication. She reached the height of her popularity in 1825 with the publication of "The Troubadour: Poetical Sketches of Modern Pictures, and Historical Sketches." In 1831 she published "Romance and Reality," her first of four novels. With her popularity came printed gossip about her relationships with male colleagues as she was a single woman, who was living on her own and supporting herself with her profession. For this reason, she wanted to marry. She wrote about passionate love in an era that was not accepted by a female. She married George Maclean, governor of a British post in Africa, in what is now Ghana, in June of 1838, yet by October and after relocating from England to Ghana, she had died from an accidental overdose of the prescribed medication of hydrocyanic acid.