James Henry Leigh Hunt (19 October 1784 – 28 August 1859), best known as Leigh Hunt, was an English critic, essayist and poet.
Hunt co-founded The Examiner, a leading intellectual journal expounding radical principles, with his brother John Hunt. He was the centre of the Hampstead-based group that included William Hazlitt and Charles Lamb, known as the "Hunt circle". Hunt also introduced John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Robert Browning and Alfred Tennyson to the public.
He may be best remembered for being sentenced to prison for two years on charges of libel against the Prince Regent (1813–1815).
Hunt's presence at Shelley's funeral on the beach near Viareggio was immortalised in the painting by Louis Édouard Fournier. Hunt inspired aspects of the Harold Skimpole character in Charles Dickens' novel Bleak House.
James Henry Leigh Hunt was born on 19 October 1784, at Southgate, London, where his parents had settled after leaving the United States. His father, Isaac, a lawyer from Philadelphia, and his mother, Mary Shewell, a merchant's daughter and a devout Quaker, had been forced to come to Britain because of their Loyalist sympathies during the American War of Independence.
Once in England, Isaac Hunt became a popular preacher but was unsuccessful in obtaining a permanent living. He was then employed by James Brydges, 3rd Duke of Chandos, as tutor to his nephew, James Henry Leigh for whom Isaac named his son.
Leigh Hunt was educated at Christ's Hospital in London from 1791 to 1799, a period that Hunt described in his autobiography. Thomas Barnes was a school friend. One of the boarding houses at Christ's Hospital is named after Hunt.
As a boy, Hunt was an admirer of Thomas Gray and William Collins, writing many verses in imitation of them. A speech impediment, later cured, prevented Hunt from going to university. "For some time after I left school," he says, "I did nothing but visit my school-fellows, haunt the book-stalls and write verses."
Hunt's first poems were published in 1801 under the title of Juvenilia, introducing him into British literary and theatrical society. He began to write for the newspapers and published in 1807 a volume of theatre criticism, and a series of Classic Tales with critical essays on the authors.
Hunt's early essays were published by Edward Quin, editor and owner of The Traveller.
In 1809, Leigh Hunt married Marianne Kent, whose parents were Thomas and Ann. Over the next 20 years, the couple had ten children: Thornton Leigh (1810–73), John Horatio Leigh (1812–46), Mary Florimel Leigh (1813–49), Swinburne Percy Leigh (1816–27), Percy Bysshe Shelley Leigh (1817–99), Henry Sylvan Leigh (1819–76), Vincent Leigh (1823–52), Julia Trelawney Leigh (1826–72), Jacyntha Leigh (1828–1914), and Arabella Leigh (1829–30).
Marianne Hunt, in poor health for most of her life, died on 26 January 1857, at the age of 69. Leigh Hunt made little mention of his family in his autobiography. Marianne's sister, Elizabeth Kent (Hunt's sister-in-law), became his amanuensis.
In 1808, Hunt left the War Office, where he had been working as a clerk, to become editor of The Examiner, a newspaper founded by his brother, John Hunt. His brother Robert Hunt contributed to its columns.
Robert Hunt's criticism earned the enmity of William Blake, who described the office of The Examiner as containing a "nest of villains". Blake's response also included Leigh Hunt, who had published several vitriolic reviews in 1808 and 1809 and had added Blake's name to a list of so-called "quacks".
The Examiner soon acquired a reputation for unusual political independence; it would attack any worthy target "from a principle of taste", as John Keats expressed it. In 1813 (or 1812), The Examiner attacked Prince Regent George, describing his physique as corpulent; the British government tried the three Hunt brothers and sentenced them to two years in prison. Leigh Hunt served his term at the Surrey County Gaol, still editing The Examiner.
Leigh Hunt's visitors at Surrey County Gaol included Lord Byron, Thomas Moore, Lord Henry Brougham, and Charles Lamb. The stoicism with which Leigh Hunt bore his imprisonment attracted general attention and sympathy. His imprisonment allowed him many luxuries and access to friends and family, and Lamb described his decorations of the cell as something not found outside a fairy tale. When Jeremy Bentham called on him, he found Hunt playing battledore.
From 1814 to 1817, Leigh Hunt and Hazlitt wrote a series of essays in The Examiner that they titled "The Round Table". These essays were published in two volumes in 1817 in The Round Table. Twelve of the 52 essays were written by Hunt, the rest by Hazlitt.
From 1810 to 1812, Leigh Hunt edited a quarterly magazine, The Reflector, for his brother John. He wrote The Feast of the Poets for publication. His work was a satire that offended many contemporary poets, particularly William Gifford.