Hood was the son of a London bookseller.  He worked for various periodicals, first as an engraver and then as an editor.  Despite the popularity of his ventures, such as Hood's Own Magazine (begun 1838), The New Monthly Magazine (which he edited for two yeas from 1841) and Hood's Magazine and Comic Miscellany (begun 1844), he experienced perpetual financial strain exacerbated by illness. His difficulties were somewhat relieved by a Civil List pension shortly before his death.

Hood's own verse ranged from romantic lyric to comic verse, satire, and parody, and poems such as Miss Kilmansegg and her Precious Leg combine a delight in the absurd and grotesque with a serious critique of social values.  Towards the end of his life, during the "hungry forties," he wrote a number of humanitarian poems which, like

• A chronology of Hood's life.

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