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
The Newcastle Eccentrics of the 19th century The Newcastle Eccentrics of the 19th century The Newcastle Eccentrics were a group of unrelated people who lived in and around the centre of Newcastle and its Quayside between the end of the 18th and early/mid 19th century. Around the end of the 18th century and the early and mid 19th century there were many characters frequenting the town centre and quayside of old Newcastle, These were characters who were described as "Worthies", "Props" or "Eccentrics" and would later be more gently described as "unfortunates". All had some form of physical or mental disability, but were looked upon as "unfortunates"