author
Edwin Paxton Hood
1820–1885
A self-educated Victorian minister turned prolific man of letters, he wrote with energy about faith, history, and the lives of remarkable people. His work ranges from biography and religious writing to hymns and popular books for general readers.
3 Audiobooks
Isaac Watts; his life and writings, his homes and friends
by Edwin Paxton Hood
About the author
Born in London in 1820, Edwin Paxton Hood grew up in difficult circumstances and was largely self-educated. He became a Congregational minister and built a career that combined preaching with an impressive amount of writing, a path that made him a recognizable nonconformist voice in Victorian England.
Hood wrote biographies, devotional works, essays, and historical studies, and he was especially drawn to notable religious and literary figures. Sources consistently describe him as a prolific author, and his books on people such as Oliver Cromwell, Isaac Watts, and William Wordsworth helped shape his reputation as a lively popular biographer.
He died in 1885 in Paris. Today he is remembered less as a single-book author than as a hardworking nineteenth-century writer whose career joined ministry, journalism, and biography in a distinctly Victorian way.