ABSTRACT
1816 saw Hunt publish more individual poems (over twenty) in The Examiner than at any stage in his relationship with the newspaper. Though this body of work includes important sonnets and lyrics, including two very different poems to Hunt’s two very different sons, Thornton and John, and a tribute sonnet to B. R. Haydon, many of the most significant poems of the year are verse letters. The verse epistle ‘To the Right Honourable Lord Byron on his Departure for Italy and Greece’ was published in the number for April 28, and in June, Hunt introduced his satirical poetic alter ego ‘Harry Brown’, beginning a series of letters addressed to Thomas Moore, William Hazlitt, Charles Lamb and Barron Field. The Brown letters contain some of Hunt’s most acrimonious satire and have not been republished in their entirety.
