Charles Kent, born William Charles Mark Kent, was a nineteenth-century English poet, biographer, and journalist. Born in London, he received his education at Prior Park and Oscott before embarking on a dual path in journalism and law. He assumed the editorship of the Sun newspaper in 1845, a position he held for twenty-five years. Although he successfully studied law and was called to the bar at the Middle Temple in 1859, he ultimately chose to dedicate his career entirely to literary pursuits.
Kent was a close personal friend of Charles Dickens and frequently contributed to Dickens's weekly journals, Household Words and All the Year Round. Alongside his journalistic output, Kent was an active poet, publishing several volumes of verse throughout the 1840s, 1850s, and 1860s, which were eventually compiled into his collected Poems in 1870. From 1874 to 1881, he also edited the Weekly Register, a prominent Roman Catholic newspaper.
In his later years, Kent focused heavily on editorial work, producing comprehensive editions, memoirs, and critical studies of major English literary figures. He edited works by Robert Burns, Charles Lamb, Thomas Moore, and Lord Lytton. His biographical and critical publications include The Humour and Pathos of Charles Dickens (1884) and Leigh Hunt as an Essayist (1888), cementing his reputation as a dedicated chronicler of Victorian-era literature.
