image id: ps_cps_cd3_038
Unknown artist
The Rt Honble Lady Eleanor Butler and Miss Ponsonby …
Lithograph, after 1831
NYPL, The Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle
Lady Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby, genteel Irishwomen who eloped to Wales,
were famous for their romantic devotion to each other, and became known as
the Ladies of Llangollen. Although obviously a couple, they were outraged and
wounded by rumors that they were lovers. Their overt passions were gardening,
reading, and home improvement, which they indulged shamelessly, and an energetic
correspondence. Paradoxically, their remoteness and wish for retirement attracted
the outside world, and they received visitors such as William Wordsworth, Sir
Walter Scott, the writer Mme de Genlis, the young Charles Darwin, and the Duke
of Wellington.
