Leigh Hunt

Captain Sword and Captain Pen (Illustrated Edition) (Dodo Press) Leigh Hunt Illustrated edition

James Henry Leigh Hunt (1784-1859) was an English critic, essayist, poet and writer. 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. In 1808 he 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. In 1810-1811 he also edited a quarterly magazine, the Reflector, for his brother John. In 1816 he made a mark in English literature with the publication of The Story of Rimini. Hunt's preference was decidedly for Chaucer's verse style, as adapted to the Modern English by John Dryden, in opposition to the epigrammatic couplet of Alexander Pope which had superseded it. In 1818 appeared a collection of poems entitled Foliage, followed in 1819 by Hero and Leander, and Bacchies and Ariadne. In the same year he reprinted these two works with The Story of Rimini and The Descent of Liberty with the title of Poetical Works, and started the Indicator, in which some of his best work appeared.