Thomas Hood
| Thomas Hood | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
23 May 1799 London, England |
| Died | 3 May 1845 (aged 45) London, England |
| Nationality | British |
| Period | 1820s–1840s |
| Genre | Poetry, fiction |
| Spouse | Jane Hood (née Reynolds) |
| Children | Tom Hood, Frances Freeling Broderip |
Thomas Hood (23 May 1799 – 3 May 1845) was an English poet, author and humourist, best known for poems such as "The Bridge of Sighs" and "The Song of the Shirt". Hood wrote regularly for The London Magazine, the Athenaeum, and Punch. He later published a magazine largely consisting of his own works. Hood, never robust, lapsed into invalidism by the age of 41 and died at the age of 45. William Michael Rossetti in 1903 called him "the finest English poet" between the generations of Shelley and Tennyson. Hood was the father of playwright and humourist Tom Hood (1835–1874).
He was born in London to Thomas Hood and Elizabeth Sands in the Poultry (Cheapside) above his father's bookshop. Hood's paternal family had been Scottish farmers from the village of Errol near Dundee. The elder Hood was a partner in the business of Verner, Hood and Sharp, a member of the Associated Booksellers. Hood's son, Tom Hood, claimed that his grandfather had been the first to open up the book trade with America and he had great success with new editions of old books.
"Next to being a citizen of the world," writes Thomas Hood in his Literary Reminiscences, "it must be the best thing to be born a citizen of the world's greatest city." On the death of her husband in 1811, his mother moved to Islington, where Thomas Hood had a schoolmaster who appreciating his talents, "made him feel it impossible not to take an interest in learning while he seemed so interested in teaching." Under the care of this "decayed dominie", he earned a few guineas — his first literary fee — by revising for the press a new edition of the 1788 novel Paul and Virginia.
Hood left his private schoolmaster at 14 years of age and was admitted soon after into the counting house of a friend of his family, where he "turned his stool into a Pegasus on three legs, every foot, of course, being a dactyl or a spondee." However, the uncongenial profession affected his health, which was never strong, and he began to study engraving. The exact nature and course of his study is unclear: various sources tell different stories. Reid emphasizes his work under his maternal uncle Robert Sands, but no deeds of apprenticeship exist and we also know from his letters that he studied with a Mr Harris. Hood's daughter in her Memorials mentions her father's association with the Le Keux brothers, who were successful engravers in the City.
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