Thomas+Hood's+Poems+Volume+I

These volumes are a collection of Thomas Hood's best and most well-known poems from throughout his career. Volume 1 has fifteen poems. This volume includes "Song of the Shirt," one of Hood's most well-known poems both while he was alive and today, through which he attempts to convey the plight of the working-class. This poem critiques "capitalism and the unrestrained operation of the market" (Butterworth). Another of his most famous poems, "Bridge of Sighs," a poem mourning the suicide of a homeless woman about whom Hood read in a newspaper, is in this volume. The poems in the first volumes are longer and more serious in tone. Volume 2 has sixty-four poems, including eighteen sonnets. These are lighter and more playful. This volume includes "Ruth" and "I remember, I remember." The second volume also has a letter Hood wrote to Charles Lamb in which he outlines his affinity for the fairy mythology in Shakespeare's //A Midsummer Night's Dream//. This letter precedes "The Plea of the Midsummer Fairies," a 63-page poem dedicated to Lamb. This poem was a favourite of Hood's, though it was not very commercially successful (Hood, //Memorials of Thomas Hood// 22). Lamb himself was a British writer and essayist, who was also wrote on Shakespeare, including a re-telling of Shakespeare for children called //Tales from Shakespeare// (1807) (Swaab). Allusions to Shakespeare appear throughout Hood's poetry, especially in his sonnets, a poetic form that is commonly associated with Shakespeare himself. The second volume also has "Lycus, the Centaur," and a dedicatory note to J. H. Reynolds, who was Hood's brother-in-law. His poem "Hero and Leander" is dedicated to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who was an inspiration of Hood's.

Both volumes of Thomas Hood's // Poems // have blue marbled covers with gold detailing and gold lettering on the spine. The first volume starts with a preface dated December 1845, written after Hood's death, about how among his last instructions was a request to publish this collection of poems. The preface calls the poems in Volume 1 "serious" and explains that if the first volume is well-received, the second volume of "the more thoughtful pieces of his Poems of wit and humour" will follow. Almost all of these poems had been previously published, with the exception of a few at the beginning of the second volume, as indicated in the Preface. There are no illustrations, nor is there an author portrait. Inside, the books are very simple and minimalistic, with no superfluous decorations or illustrations. The books are small and the paper is thick. The edges of the pages are uneven and ragged-looking, instead of being cleanly cut at the same length. There are many kinds of poems (though they are always structured), like sonnets, ballads, odes, narratives, and more. These volumes were published by Edward Moxon, a publisher and poet who published the likes of Alfred Tennyson and William Wordsworth, according to Hans Ostrom. Other books published by Moxon are included in the last few pages of volume 1, including works by Shelley, Spenser, Chaucer, Charles Lamb, Keats and more. Both volumes are printed by Bradbury and Evans in Whitefriars, London.

The copy of the first volume in the University of Victoria library includes a photocopy of a letter from his son, also named Thomas Hood, to a Mr Straham, asking, "Do you ever answer letters?" Tom then asks for a reply to his letter about "a little volume of verses." His letterhead is titled, "Fun Office, 80 Fleet St," which was Tom Hood's office. A note in pencil on the previous page indicates that it is a "First collected edition" and that there is a "HLs from his son inserted." The meaning of this is unclear. Tom Hood was also a writer and poet like his father.

Thomas Hood bridged the gap between Romantic and Victorian literature. His father, also named Thomas Hood, was a publisher and bookseller, and his mother, Elizabeth Sands, was from a well-known family of engravers (Flint). Hood was born in 1799 in London. His family moved to the rural town of Islington, where Hood studied at a dame-school in Tokenhouse Yard. Joy Flint recounts that after Tokenhouse Yard, Hood went to Camberwell to study at Dr Wanostracht's Alfred House Academy. Following the death of his father and brother when Hood was just twelve, he went to a day school. His health deteriorated in his mid-to-late teenage years, which is when he moved to Dundee and learned to engrave. Because of the many deaths in the family and his own poor health, Hood's writing is "frequently animated by a sense of the inevitability and the pervasiveness of death" (Wolfson). He started contributing to local magazines anonymously during this time, according to Joy Flint. When his health improved in 1817, he moved to London and worked as an engraver. There, he joined a literary society. In 1821, Hood became a sub-editor for // London Magazine // through his connections with the magazine's new editor, which was the start of his literary journalism career. In 1824, he married Jane Reynolds, with whom he would go on to have two children: Tom Hood, who would become a comic writer as well, and Frances Freeling, a children's writer, according to G. C. Boase. He excelled at comic and domestic writing. Despite this, he would struggle with finances his whole life, dying in debt (Flint). Most of Hood's works were first published in annuals or magazines, but he also published some collections of poetry. The first, // Odes and Addresses // (1825), a light-hearted, playful work, was well received. However his more serious work, like // The Plea of the Midsummer Fairies // (1827), was not popular, though some of those poems are still included in anthologies today, like "Ruth" and "I remember, I remember." His attack on society's preoccupation with wealth in // Miss Kilmansegg and her Precious Leg // proved Hood's ability to combine comedy and criticism. He mixed political messages into his works, standing against poverty, slavery and oppression. In his final years, he captivated readers with his heart-wrenching poems about real incidents to draw attention to the hardships of the poor, like "Song of the Shirt" (1843), "The Workhouse Clock" (1844) and "The Bridge of Sighs" (1844). Joy Flint reports that Thomas Hood died at age 45 on May 3rd, 1845 in London. Both volumes of // Poems // were published in 1846, shortly after his death, as per his request. Visit the Thomas Hood wikispaces here.

T.G.Engl386.UVic.Spring2016

Works Cited

Boase, G. C. “ Broderip, Frances Freeling  (1830–1878) .” Rev. Victoria Millar. //Oxford Dictionary of National // // Biography //. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman.  2004. 13 Feb. 2016

Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. Sept. 2014. 13 Feb. 2016

Butterworth, Robert D. "Thomas Hood, Early Victorian Social Criticism, and the Hoodian Hero." //Victorian Literature and Culture// 39.2. Cambridge University Press, September 2011. Web. 20 April 2016.

Flint, Joy. “ Hood, Thomas  (1799–1845) .” //Oxford Dictionary of National Biography //. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence  Goldman. <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;">Oxford: OUP, 2004. 13 Feb. 2016

Hood, Thomas. //Memorials of Thomas Hood//. London: E. Moxon, 1860. Print.

Hood, Thomas. // Poems //. 2 vols. London: E. Moxon, 1846. Print (UVic call number: PR4795 A4 1846)

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;">Ostrom, Hans. “ <span class="headword" style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;">Moxon, Edward <span class="roman" style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;"> (1801-1858) <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;">.” //<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;">Oxford Dictionary of National Biography //<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;">. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 1.5;">Swaab, Peter. “ <span class="headword" style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 1.5;">Lamb, Charles <span class="roman" style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 1.5;"> (1775–1834) <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 1.5;">.” //<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 1.5;">Oxford Dictionary of National Biography //<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 1.5;">. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 1.5;"> Goldman. Oxford: OUP, 2004. 13 Feb. 2016

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 1.5;">Wolfson, Susan J. "Representing some Late Romantic-Era, Non-Canonical Male Poets: Thomas Hood, Winthrop Mackworth Praed, Thomas Lovell Beddoes." //Romanticism on the Net 19//. Anthony John Harding, August 2000. Web. 19 April 2016.