Leigh Hunt

Leigh Hunt (1784-1859), English poet, essayist, and literary critic, who collaborated with many of the leading poets of his time, as well as recognizing them in his own writing. Born in Southgate, Middlesex, he began to write verse and to contribute articles to newspapers soon after he left school. In 1808 he began editing a liberal periodical, the Examiner, owned by his brother. He continued his association with the journal as editor and contributor for 13 years. After leaving the Examiner, Hunt founded a journal, the Liberal, in Italy, collaborating with the English poets Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. After 1825, Hunt spent his life in England as an established critic, writing numerous volumes of graceful critical essays that indicate his generous, discerning approach to the work of new poets and writers, typified by his early recognition of the poetic genius by his countrymen John Keats and Alfred, Lord Tennyson. His narrative poem “Story of Rimini” (1816) is regarded by some literary historians as a precursor of English romantic poetry, and his shorter narrative poem “Abou ben Adhem” is one of the most familiar and popular of English poems. Two volumes of his collected poetical works were published (1832, 1844), and he wrote a three-volume Autobiography (1850).