Mahoney, Charles, ed. Leigh Hunt: Later Literary Essays. Vol. 4, Selected Writings of Leigh Hunt. 6 vols. London: Pickering & Chatto, 2003. 280 pp.

James Henry Leigh Hunt (1774-1859) was one of the most prolific and influential writers on British culture and politics in the first half of the nineteenth century. He was a key member of the literary circle that included P B and Mary Shelley, John Keats, Charles Lamb, and William Hazlitt, and he knew everyone from Wordsworth and Hone to Bentham and Brougham. A passionate and outspoken participant in the London political scene, his imprisonment for seditious libel against the Prince Regent in 1813 made him a hero of the left. He is now most often remembered as the editor of the radical weekly newspaper the Examiner (1808-22) and the leader of the 'Cockney School of Poetry'.

Hunt's contribution to romantic literature was as extensive as it has proven to be durable, in matters as various as prosodic experimentation and the modernisation of the magazine essay. This new edition fills a major gap in Romantic studies by making available in a single edition all of Hunt's major works, fully annotated and with a consolidated index. The set includes all of Hunt's poetry, and an extensive selection of his periodical essays, a number of which have never been reprinted.

• First available scholarly edition - reset text with annotation in the form of endnotes
• General Introduction, with separate introductions for each volume
• Headnotes for each essay
• Comprehensive Index