Hood, Thomas (1799-1845)

English poet and humorist Thomas Hood.

English poet and humorist. He entered journalism and edited periodicals, including his own Hood's Monthly Magazine in 1844. Although remembered for his light comic verse, for example, ‘Miss Kilmansegg’ (1841), he also wrote serious poems such as ‘The Dream of Eugene Aram’ (1839), about a notorious murderer; ‘Song of the Shirt’ (1843), a protest against poorly paid labour; and ‘Bridge of Sighs’ (1843), about the suicide of a prostitute.

Hood was born in London, of Scottish descent. He began his literary career at 22 by contributing to the London Magazine, and through this he met Thomas De Quincey, Charles Lamb, William Hazlitt, and other leading writers of the day. He published Whims and Oddities (1826), and began to publish his Comic Annual four years later. He was abroad from 1835 but returned to England in 1840, and in the following year became editor of the New Monthly Magazine. In the year before his death he started Hood's Magazine and issued Whimsicalities.