Thomas Jefferson Hogg

Thomas Jefferson Hogg (born May 24, 1792, Norton, Durham, Eng.—died Aug. 27, 1862, London) was an English writer best known as the first biographer of his friend Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Hogg first met Shelley at Oxford and was expelled with him in 1811 for his share in writing a pamphlet called “The Necessity of Atheism.” He later studied law at London’s Middle Temple and became a barrister in 1817. After Shelley’s death in 1822, Hogg was commissioned by the poet’s family to write a biography of him, the first two volumes of which appeared in 1858 under the title The Life of Shelley. This work throws much light on the poet’s character through the use of anecdotes and letters and contains a good deal of material relating to Hogg himself. It was to have been in four volumes; but the Shelley family, objecting to the first two volumes’ focus on Hogg himself, refused him access to sources necessary for completing the Life.