The Life of William Blake

Because of the limited printings of William Blake’s works and his idiosyncratic philosophy, Blake was largely unknown during his lifetime. Published nearly 40 years after Blake’s death, this book helped cement the poet’s reputation in the late 19th century and onward. Gilchrist gives a biography of the great artist and also typesets many of Blake’s poems for the first time. As the first standard text on Blake, Gilchrist’s book became the foundation of the extensive scholarship on Blake that would continue throughout the Romantic Age.