Lesbian Fanny gladdens my heart:—You know not how I love her." Wollstonecraft's first novel "", in part, addressed her relationship with Fanny Blood. Perhaps the most famous of these romantic friendships was between Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby, nicknamed the Ladies of Llangollen. Butler and Ponsonby eloped in 1778, to the relief of Ponsonby's family (concerned about their reputation had she run away with a man) to live together in Wales for 51 years and be thought of as eccentrics. Their story was considered "the epitome of virtuous romantic friendship" and inspired poetry by Anna Seward and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Diarist
Edward Ponsonby, 2nd Baron Sysonby film "Mrs Brown" – who was Private Secretary to Queen Victoria. His great-grandfather was badly wounded at the Battle of Waterloo, but survived to become General Sir Frederick Ponsonby. The sister who helped nurse him back to health was Lady Caroline, better known to history under her married name of Lady Caroline Lamb as the wife of the future Prime Minister Lord Melbourne and lover of the poet Lord Byron. Lady Caroline was also a key figure in the film "Lady Caroline Lamb" – played by Sarah Miles – in 1972. The father of the two siblings, Edward's great-great-grandfather, was