Leigh Hunt

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Hunt, (James Henry) Leigh (1784–1859), was educated at Christ's Hospital. His first collection of poems appeared in 1807. In 1808 he founded and edited, with his brother John (above), the Examiner, and in 1810 he edited the Reflector, in which he published Lamb's essays on Shakespeare and Hogarth. In 1813 he and his brother were fined £500 and sentenced to two years' imprisonment for a libel in the Examiner on the prince regent. While in jail he continued to write and edit the Examiner, and received visits from Byron, Moore, the Lambs, Bentham, James Mill, and Brougham. In 1816 he printed Keats's sonnet ‘O Solitude’ in the Examiner, and began his lifelong support of Keats, Shelley, and the Romantic poets; his name was linked with that of Keats and Hazlitt in attacks on the so-called Cockney school. Hunt's influential poem The Story of Rimini appeared in 1816; his verse collection Foliage in 1818; and in 1819 his poems Hero and Leander and Bacchus and Ariadne. In his journal the Indicator he published in 1821 Keats's ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’, and in the Liberal, founded jointly with Byron, appeared The Vision of Judgement (1822). ‘Abou Ben Adhem’ (probably, with ‘Jenny kissed me’, Hunt's best-known poem) was published in an anthology, the Book of Gems (1838). His many other works include plays, Poetical Works (1844), a lively Autobiography (1850), and Table Talk (1851).

Hunt's essays, although much influenced by the essayists of the previous century, were not moral in intent. His aim was to convey appreciation and enjoyment, and his pleasure in literature, music, and drama (see theatre criticism). His gift for detecting talent, from Keats to Tennyson, and his determined support for it, made him an invaluable editor. His sunny, optimistic nature is sketched in the early character of Skimpole in Bleak House.

Leigh Hunt (James Henry Leigh Hunt) , 1784-1859, English poet, critic, and journalist. He was a friend of the eminent literary men of his time, and his home was the gathering place for such notable writers as Hazlitt , Lamb , Keats , and Shelley . With his brother John, Hunt established (1808) the Examiner, a liberal weekly to which he contributed political articles. Because of an outspoken article attacking the prince regent, the brothers were imprisoned from 1813 to 1815, but they continued to edit the journal from jail. In 1822, Hunt joined Shelley and Byron in Italy and launched the Liberal (1822-23), which proved a failure. During other periods Hunt contributed to the Indicator (1819-21), the Tatler (1830-32), and Leigh Hunt's London Journal (1834-35). His literary fame rests chiefly on his miscellaneous light essays, his lyrics Abou Ben Adhem and Jenny Kissed Me, and his witty and informative autobiography (1850). The Story of Rimini (1816), based on the love of Paolo and Francesca, is his only long poem of consequence. A noted dramatic and literary critic, he was one of the first to praise the genius of Shelley and Keats.

Bibliography: See L. H. and C. W. Houtchens, ed., Leigh Hunt's Dramatic Criticism (1949), Leigh Hunt's Literary Criticism (1956), and Leigh Hunt's Political and Occasional Essays (1962); biographies by E. Blunden (1930, repr. 1970), J. R. Thompson (1977), A. Blainey (1985), and A. Holden (2005).

Hunt, (James Henry) Leigh (1784–1859), English poet and essayist, and one of the pioneers of modern dramatic criticism. He probably had a keener appreciation of acting than any of his contemporaries, and his criticisms—the best of which are contained in Dramatic Essays (1894) edited by William Archer—recreate the art of the great players who brought distinction to the theatre of his day. He was the first regular critic of any importance to report upon all the principal theatrical events of his time, both in the News from 1805 to 1807 and in his own paper the Examiner, which he edited from 1808 to 1821, continuing to supervise it even while in prison in 1813 for having published in it some criticisms of the Prince Regent. In 1840 his only play A Legend of Florence was produced at Covent Garden, and in the same year he published an edition of the dramatic works of Sheridan and the Restoration dramatists with biographical notes, which inspired Macaulay to publish in the Edinburgh Review his famous essay on ‘The Comic Dramatists of the Restoration’.

Hunt, (James Henry) Leigh (1784–1859) English critic, journalist, and poet. Hunt was instrumental in introducing the work of Shelley and Keats to the public. He founded the literary periodical The Examiner, and also contributed to The Indicator and The Liberal.