Holden's narrative brings to life a pivotal moment in literary and political history--the world of England in the first half of the 19th century and the transition from the Romantics to the Victorians. A tirelessly prolific poet, essayist, editor, and critic, Hunt was the beating heart of a Romantic literary circle, an intimate of Keats and Shelley, Byron, Hazlitt, and Lamb. While campaigning fearlessly for political reform, he invented theater criticism as we know it and launched the careers of numerous poets whose names now overshadow his own. But he survived most of his youthful companions to become an elder statesman of Victorian literature, the friend and champion of Thackeray, Tennyson, Browning, and Dickens.--From publisher description.