The Autobiography of Leigh Hunt has been taken at face-value by generations of readers and social historians. It is justly celebrated for its accounts of Hunt's experience as an eighteenth-century pupil at Christ's Hospital (which can be compared to those of Coleridge and Hunt's friend Charles
Lamb); the transformation of his prison cell and garden at Horsemonger Lane and, more generally, his experience of imprisonment; Shelley's last days and his cremation on the beach at La Spezia; many memorable theatrical performances; the politically-charged drama of the law courts; the varieties of
London (to which, as a proudly defiant 'Cockney', Hunt deliberately arrogated a particular significance); the shifting and sometimes terrifying realities of a sea-voyage; and Hunt's intimate perspectives into the lives of Shelley, Byron, Keats, Lamb, Moore, and many others. Yet, as this edition
demonstrates, Hunt's Autobiography is a strategically constructed work which often proceeded through a number of stages before reaching a final equilibrium. For the first time since the book appeared in 1850, this text follows the version of the first edition, by which Hunt was generally known to
his contemporaries, rather than the revised version of 1860, which was published after his death.

About the Author:
Leigh Hunt

Timothy Webb was born in Dublin and was educated there and in Oxford; he has taught at the universities of Leeds, Michigan State, York and Bristol, where he was Winterstoke Professor and Head of the Department of English between 1990 and 1999. Although he has written extensively on Shelley
(especially on Shelley and translation), on whom he has published a number of books and editions, he has also lectured and published over many years in a number of countries on a wide range of topics. For fourteen years he was editor of Keats-Shelley Review and he was one of the founding editors of
Romanticism. His interest in Irish literature and history has led to a pioneering edition of Yeats's poetry (published by Penguin in 1991 and still in print), forthcoming books on English versions of Robert Emmet and the life of an Irish informer (with accompanying CD), and a detailed study of
Ireland and the English Romantics which is nearly completed.