William Hone was one of the radical publishers, writers, and journalists--among them William Cobbett, Thomas Wooler, and Richard Carlile--who vigorously attacked the Tory government and its supporters during the Regency period. He achieved particular fame in 1817, when he successfully defended himself against government prosecution for blasphemous libel. He went on to publish a series of enormously popular satiric pamphlets illustrated by George Cruikshank. Later he became widely read as the compiler of a series of miscellanies based upon his extensive antiquarian knowledge. For all his fame as a political activist, however, Hone's private life was difficult and distressing. He was persistently insolvent, and throughout his life he suffered a protracted inner struggle with the evangelical faith in which he had been raised.

Hone was born on 3 June 1780 in Bath. His mother was Frances Maria Stawell. His father, William Hone, Sr., was a clerk and a devout nonconformist who...