Leigh Hunt

Leigh Hunt
Leigh Hunt; portrait by Benjamin Haydon
Born	James Henry Leigh Hunt (1784-10-19)19 October 1784 Southgate, London, England
Died	28 August 1859(1859-08-28) (aged 74) Putney, London, England
Burial place	Kensal Green Cemetery
Education	Christ's Hospital, Newgate Street, London
Spouse	Marianne Kent ​ ​ (m. 1808; died 1857)​
Children	10, including Thornton Leigh Hunt
Relatives	John Hunt (brother) Elizabeth Kent (sister-in-law) Chandos Leigh Hunt Wallace (grand-niece)

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. 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.

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.^[1]