Under the care of this "decayed dominie", he earned a few guineas – his first literary fee – by revising for the press a new edition of the 1788 novel Paul and Virginia.

Hood left his private schoolmaster at 14 years of age and was admitted soon after into the counting house of a friend of his family, where he "turned his stool into a Pegasus on three legs, every foot, of course, being a dactyl or a spondee."

Reid emphasizes his work under his maternal uncle Robert Sands,[4] but no deeds of apprenticeship exist and his letters show he studied with a Mr Harris.

Hood's daughter in her Memorials mentions her father's association with the Le Keux brothers, who were successful engravers in the City.

Then on falling out with her, he moved on to the boarding house of one of her friends, Mrs Butterworth, where he lived for the rest of his time in Scotland.

In 1821, John Scott, editor of The London Magazine, was killed in a duel, and the periodical passed into the hands of some friends of Hood, who proposed to make him sub-editor.

In the Memorials there is a story of Hood instructing his wife Jane to purchase some fish for the evening meal from a woman who regularly came to the door selling her husband's catch.

[11] The series of the Comic Annual, dating from 1830, was a type of publication popular at the time, which Hood undertook and continued almost unassisted for several years.

Spring it is cheery, Winter is dreary, Green leaves hang, but the brown must fly; When he's forsaken, Withered and shaken, What can an old man do but die?

Love will not clip him, Maids will not lip him, Maud and Marian pass him by; Youth it is sunny, Age has no honey, - What can an old man do but die?

I will not have the mad Clytie, Whose head is turned by the sun; The tulip is a courtly quean, Whom, therefore, I will shun; The cowslip is a country wench, The violet is a nun; - But I will woo the dainty rose, The queen of every one.

The pea is but a wanton witch, In too much haste to wed, And clasps her rings on every hand; The wolfsbane I should dread; Nor will I dreary rosemarye, That always mourns the dead; - But I will woo the dainty rose, With her cheeks of tender red.

The lily is all in white, like a saint, And so is no mate for me; And the daisy's cheek is tipped with a blush, She is of such low degree; Jasmine is sweet, and has many loves, And the broom's betrothed to the bee; - But I will plight with the dainty rose, For fairest of all is she.

He did the work from a sick-bed from which he never rose, and there also composed well-known poems such as "The Song of the Shirt", which appeared anonymously in the Christmas number of Punch, 1843 and was immediately reprinted in The Times and other newspapers across Europe.

It was dramatised by Mark Lemon as The Sempstress, printed on broadsheets and cotton handkerchiefs, and was highly praised by many of the literary establishment, including Charles Dickens.

[citation needed] Hood was associated with the Athenaeum, started in 1828 by James Silk Buckingham, and was a regular contributor to it for the rest of his life.

Jane Hood, who also suffered from poor health, had put tremendous energy into tending her husband in his last year and died only 18 months later.

[15] Nine years later, a monument raised by public subscription in Kensal Green Cemetery was unveiled by Richard Monckton Milnes.

Thackeray, a friend of Hood's, gave this assessment of him: "Oh sad, marvellous picture of courage, of honesty, of patient endurance, of duty struggling against pain!...

No morn—no noon— No dawn—no dusk—no proper time of day— No sky—no earthly view— No distance looking blue— No road—no street—no "t'other side the way"— No end to any Row— No indications where the Crescents go— No top to any steeple— No recognitions of familiar people— No courtesies for showing 'em— No knowing 'em!— No travelling at all—no locomotion, No inkling of the way—no notion— "No go"—by land or ocean— No mail—no post— No news from any foreign coast— No Park—no Ring—no afternoon gentility— No company—no nobility— No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease, No comfortable feel in any member— No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees, No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds,— November!

Strength returns and hope revives; Cloudy fears and shapes forlorn Fly like shadows at the morn, - O’er the earth there comes a bloom; Sunny light for sullen gloom, Warm perfume for vapor cold, - I smell the rose above the mould!

Hood's poem appeared in one of the first editions of Punch in 1843 and quickly became a public sensation, being turned into a popular song and inspiring social activists in defence of countless industrious labouring women living in abject poverty.

An excerpt: With fingers weary and worn, With eyelids heavy and red, A woman sat, in unwomanly rags, Plying her needle and thread-- Stitch!