Thomas Hood

Thomas Hood 1799-1845, English poet. He was an editor of various prominent magazines and periodicals. The greater proportion of his work was written in a humorous vein, and he was celebrated for his use of figurative language, especially puns. However, it is in his serious poems, notably "The Song of the Shirt" and "The Bridge of Sighs," that he shows his true creative ability. In these poems Hood displays great compassion for the poor and unfortunate, a feeling that was probably influenced by his own suffering from ill-health and poverty. His other noted poems include "The Dream of Eugene Aram" and "The Plea of the Midsummer Fairies."

Bibliography: See his letters ed. by P. F. Morgan (1973); study by L. N. Jeffrey (1972).

Hood, Thomas (1799–1845), the friend of Lamb, Hazlitt, de Quincey, and other literary men. He edited various periodicals: the Germ (1829), the Comic Annual (1830), the New Monthly Magazine (1841–3), and Hood's Magazine (1843). He wrote much humorous and satirical verse, often making use of his remarkable skill with puns. His serious poems include ‘The Song of the Shirt’; ‘The Bridge of Sighs’; ‘The Dream of Eugene Aram’, about a murder; ‘The Last Man’; ‘The Plea of the Mid-summer Fairies’ (which includes ‘I remember, I remember’); and shorter pieces, such as ‘The Death-bed’.

Hood, Thomas, the younger (1835–74), a humorous writer and artist, known as Tom Hood, was the son of Thomas Hood. Pen and Pencil Pictures (1857) was the first of his illustrated books. His most successful novel was Captain Master's Children (1865). He became editor of Fun in 1865, and in 1867 he founded Tom Hood's Comic Annual. He wrote and illustrated many children's books; his collected verse, Favourite Poems, was published in 1877.