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Creator
Hunt, Leigh, 1784-1859
Call number
Pforz MS
Physical description
340 items
Language
English
Preferred Citation
Leigh Hunt manuscript material, Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle, The New York Public Library
Repository
Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle
Access to materials
Restricted access. Request an in-person research appointment.

The Leigh Hunt manuscript material in the Pforzheimer Collection consists of writings and correspondence. The writings include: a holograph draft of his poem, "Jenny Kiss'd Me"; a holograph fragment of his preface to Shelley's Mask of Anarchy; and his address book circa the mid-1850s. The bulk of the correspondence is dated between 1817 and 1826 and discusses his experiences in Italy, including the death of Shelley; family matters; and publishing business. Correspondents include: the Irish poet William Allingham; the philosopher and reformer Jeremy Bentham; the writer and painter William Hazlitt; the writers Percy Bysshe and Mary Shelley; and over seventy others.

Biographical/historical information

Leigh Hunt, English poet, journalist, and literary critic.

Scope and arrangement

The Leigh Hunt manuscript material is arranged in two series:

Administrative information

Custodial history

The first Leigh Hunt manuscripts, twenty letters to his sister-in-law, the botanist and writer Bessie Kent, were acquired by Carl H. Pforzheimer from Sotheby's on July 24, 1922. The following September Pforzheimer added a trove of Hunt letters, along with a holograph fragment of Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Laon and Cythna" bearing Hunt's emotional, autograph apostrophe to his "dead friend," from the London bookseller Walter Thomas Spencer. Pforzheimer added an additional eight letters from Hunt to the Victorian writer G. H. Lewes to his growing cache in June of 1923 and continued to make regular purchases until his death in 1957. Acquisitions continued under the auspices of the Pforzheimer Foundation until the Collection came to the New York Public Library in 1986. The Pforzheimer Collection continues to actively acquire Leigh Hunt manuscripts. This finding aid will be updated as new acquisitions are made.

Processing information

Finding aid created by Charles Cuykendall Carter and Clare O. Needham, 2013-2019. Finding aid revised, expanded, and imported to ASpace by Timothy Gress, 2022.

Related Material

In addition to manuscript material created by Leigh Hunt, the Pforzheimer Collection holds a sizeable sub-collection of "Huntana," manuscripts that relate to Hunt. These mostly include letters written by other Hunt family members, and incoming correspondence addressed to Hunt. Many Hunt-related printed materials are also available, including copies of first and further editions of nearly all of Leigh Hunt's published works. Most major biographical and bibliographical works on Hunt are held by the Collection, as are a handful of 19th and early 20th century works of Hunt criticism.

Among the Collection's visual materials relating to Hunt is the satirical etching by Samuel de Wilde, "New Roads to the Temple of Fortune," which features a scathing caricature of Hunt.

A small but growing collection of early printed portraits of Hunt is also held, including engravings by Freeman after Jackson; A. Croquis; and J. C. Armytage after Joseph Severn. The bust of Shelley visible through the glass door of the Pforzheimer Collection reading room was sculpted by Hunt's wife, Marianne.

Additional Leigh Hunt manuscript material can be found in the following divisions of the New York Public Library: The Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature; The Rare Book Division; and The Manuscripts and Archives Division.

Note

For the sake of preservation, we direct researchers to first consult the published version of a manuscript whenever possible. Some of the Pforzheimer Collection's Leigh Hunt manuscripts are published in Shelley and his Circle (SC). This finding aid lists volume and page number references for all manuscripts that appear in SC. Letters published in Eleanor M. Gates's Leigh Hunt: A Life in Letters (1999) are also noted with reference.

Key terms

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Subjects

Using the collection

Location

Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle
Stephen A. Schwarzman Building
Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street, New York, NY 10018-2788
Third Floor, Room 319

Access to materials

Restricted access. Request an in-person research appointment.