John Leigh Hunt

Who is John Leigh Hunt?

John Hunt was an English printer, publisher, and occasional political writer. He was an elder brother of the poet and essayist Leigh Hunt and a brother of the critic Robert Hunt.

Born in Philadelphia to Isaac Hunt and Mary Hunt, he was taken to London as a child. There he was apprenticed as a young man to the printer Henry Reynell. Known as a staunch, outspoken, and uncompromising radical, Hunt was more than once imprisoned for his publication of items that were considered libelous, even seditious.

John Hunt was responsible for various periodicals over the years, all of them politically left-leaning, includingThe News, The Reflector, the Yellow Dwarf, The Liberal, and, the most famous and influential, The Examiner, edited by his brother Leigh Hunt.

He was also known for publishing radical or controversial works no one else would touch. Among the miscellany, including one book by Jeremy Bentham, there were others more obviously incendiary or scandalous, such as some of Byron's later works, including The Vision of Judgment, Hazlitt's Liber Amoris, and writings of both Percy and Mary Shelley.

Although Hunt was closely attached to, and frequent collaborator with, his younger brother Leigh, there was a period of many years during which the brothers were not on speaking terms, though communication was finally resumed. Hunt and his wife Sarah had at least two sons, one of whom, Henry Leigh Hunt, eventually took over many publishing and editing responsibilities from his father.