The Life of William BlakeCourier Dover Publications, 2017 M05 9 - 640 pages One of the greatest Victorian-era biographies, Alexander Gilchrist's The Life of William Blake plays a key role in the history of Blake's work and its influence on other writers and artists. The first standard text on Blake and a cornerstone of the extensive scholarship on his life and work, it not only delivered its subject from unjust obscurity but also dispelled the notion of Blake's insanity and established his genius as a visionary artist and poet. Sensitive, highly readable accounts trace Blake's childhood and years as an engraver's apprentice, his relations with patrons and employers, his trial for treason, and his declining health and untimely death. The author's wide-ranging research includes interviews with many of Blake's surviving friends, whose personal recollections add warmth and immediacy to this portrait. Extensive quotes from the subject's poetry and prose — practically unknown at the time of the original 1863 publication — further enliven the text. In addition to a critical commentary on Blake's boyhood poems, this transformative biography features more than 40 of his illustrations. |
From inside the book
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Page ix
... later life, “Job confessing his presumption,” where the hitherto veiled and dreaded Vision of God draws near in strange gentleness, softly haloed with hues of sunset, while around Him the dim-winged angels of twilight sweep earthwards ...
... later life, “Job confessing his presumption,” where the hitherto veiled and dreaded Vision of God draws near in strange gentleness, softly haloed with hues of sunset, while around Him the dim-winged angels of twilight sweep earthwards ...
Page x
... later days is Walt Whitman. These two, so unlike yet so alike, starting from different poles wide worlds asunder, gradually draw near to each other until the outlook becomes almost identical : the worshipper of the physical body, and ...
... later days is Walt Whitman. These two, so unlike yet so alike, starting from different poles wide worlds asunder, gradually draw near to each other until the outlook becomes almost identical : the worshipper of the physical body, and ...
Page 1
... later, Mr. Leslie, in his Handbook for Young Painters, dwells on it with imperfect sympathy for awhile, to dismiss it with scanty recognition. Yet no less a contemporary than Wordsworth, a man little prone to lavish eulogy or attention ...
... later, Mr. Leslie, in his Handbook for Young Painters, dwells on it with imperfect sympathy for awhile, to dismiss it with scanty recognition. Yet no less a contemporary than Wordsworth, a man little prone to lavish eulogy or attention ...
Page 7
... later date was to Blackheath, or south-west, over Dulwich and Norwood hills, through the antique rustic town of Croydon, type once of the compact, clean, cheerful Surrey towns of old days, to the fertile verdant meads of Walton-upon ...
... later date was to Blackheath, or south-west, over Dulwich and Norwood hills, through the antique rustic town of Croydon, type once of the compact, clean, cheerful Surrey towns of old days, to the fertile verdant meads of Walton-upon ...
Page 8
... later years, in which the grown man believed as unaffectedly as ever had the boy of ten. One day a traveller was telling bright wonders of some foreign city. “Do you call that splendid?” broke in young Blake; “I should call a city ...
... later years, in which the grown man believed as unaffectedly as ever had the boy of ten. One day a traveller was telling bright wonders of some foreign city. “Do you call that splendid?” broke in young Blake; “I should call a city ...
Contents
5 | |
12 | |
24 | |
27 | |
INTRODUCTION TO THE POLITE WoRLD 178284 AET 2527 | 44 |
CHAPTER VII | 52 |
NOTES ON LAVATER 1788 AET 3031 | 62 |
CHAPTER IX | 70 |
A KEEN EMPLOYER 18057 AET 4850 | 219 |
THE DESIGNS To BLAIR 18048 AET 4751 | 238 |
CHAPTER XXV | 255 |
YEARS OF DEEPENING NEGLECT 181017 AET 5360 | 263 |
CHAPTER XXVIII | 270 |
NOTES ON REYNOLDS I | 276 |
CHAPTER XXXI | 294 |
INventions to THE Book of Job | 301 |
BookSELLER JOHNSONs 179192 AET 3435 | 92 |
CHAPTER XIII | 118 |
AT WORK FOR THE PUBLISHERs 179599 AET 3842 | 137 |
PoET HAYLEY AND FELPHAM 18001 AET 4344 | 158 |
AET 6870 3 II | 165 |
TRIAL FOR HIGH TREASON 18034 AET 4647 | 192 |
CHAPTER XXI | 205 |
MAD OR NOT MAD 2 | 337 |
CHAPTER XXXVI | 351 |
CHAPTER XXXVIII | 383 |
SUPPLEMENTARY | 388 |
THE COLOUR PRINTS | 404 |
ANNOTATED LIST OF BLAKEs PAINTINGS DRAWINGS | 415 |
INDEX | 527 |
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Common terms and phrases
Adam and Eve admiration Albion Allan Cunningham angels appears artist Ballads beauty Butts called Capt character Chaucer Christ clouds colour composition copy cottage Cowper Cromek Dante dark death delight drawing edition engraved eternal executed Exhibition expression eyes favourite Felpham figure finished flames Flaxman fresco frontispiece Fuseli genius grace grand Grave guineas hand Hayley Hayley's head heaven illustrations imagination Indian ink Jerusalem John Varley labour Last Judgment letter light Linnell living London look Milton mind natural never Oothoon original Ozias Humphrey painted painter perhaps picture plates poem poet poetic poetry portrait printed published quarto Reynolds Satan seen serpent sketch Songs of Experience Songs of Innocence soul South Molton spirit Stothard Street style sweet tell Tempera Theotormon things thou thought tion Varley verse vision visionary volume water-colour wife WILLIAM BLAKE writes young