Autograph Letter Signed ("Tho. Hood") offering his services as Editor of the "Keepsake". HOOD (Thomas).

HOOD OFFERS HIS SERVICES AS EDITOR OF THE KEEPSAKE

Black ink. One page, folded. Small 4to. [225 x 184 mm].
[London] 2 Robert Street, Adelphi, [1827?]

Addressed to "Sir", Hood writes "I have heard that the "Keepsake" is not yet provided with an Editor & take the liberty of offering my literary services, in case you should have no better person in prospect. I flatter myself that I possess some peculiar & novel advantages which I should like to bestow only on an Annual of high standing - & the rank occupied by the "Keepsake" would excite me to use them to the uttermost".

Thomas Hood (1799-1845) became sub-editor of the London Magazine in 1821, and was soon in his element: "I dream articles, thought articles, wrote articles .... The more irksome parts of authorship, such as the correction of the press, were to me labours of love". "Nearly all of his work, verse and prose, first appeared in magazines and annuals catering for the growing middle-class market. From 1821 to 1845 he was closely involved, as contributor or editor, with many of them, particularly the London Magazine, The Athenaeum, The Gem, the New Monthly Magazine, and Punch. He wrote - and illustrated, inventing visual puns - a series of Comic Annuals (1830-9), collected his magazine contributions into Whims and Oddities (1826 and 1827) and Whimsicalities (1844) and also published Hood's Magazine (1844-5). Hood wrote for a living, and was keenly alive to contemporary life and popular taste. His work provides insight into domestic reading and the development of periodical publishing in the first half of the nineteenth century". - ODNB.

In 1825 Hood married John Hamilton Reynolds's sister Jane and they settled at 2 Robert Street, Adelphi. Their daughter Frances was born in 1830 soon after they moved to Winchmore Hill. His bid for the editorship of the Keepsake was unsuccessful. The first edition for 1828 was initiated by the engraver Charles Heath, published by Hurst, Chance and Co. and edited by William Harrison Ainsworth. Frederic Mansel Reynolds took over the editorship for 1829-1835 and again for 1838 and 1839. Caroline Norton edited 1836, followed by Lady Emmeline Stuart-Wortley for the 1837 and 1840 editions, Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington for 1841 to 1849, and Marguerite Agnes Power for 1850 to the final edition in 1857. The 1829 edition had a long and impressive list of contributors, including Scott, Moore, Wordsworth, Southey, Coleridge, and Percy and Mary Shelley, but no Hood.

Stock no. ebc7872