William Blake
William Blake was born in London in 1757. He apprenticed under engraver James Basire for seven years and then studied at the Royal Academy. His most popular collection “Songs of Innocence” was published in 1789, in which he combined both text and pictures on one engraved plate. He continued creating books throughout his life and found admirers in the water-colorists of the next generation in 1818. He died in 1827.
Excerpted from "Blake's Poetry and Designs", selected and edited by Mary Lynn Johnson and John E. Grant, published by W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. in 1979.
William Blake is featured in Edition: Small Wonder
The Human Abstract
III. Vision
Mad Song
The Golden Net
America 10. Bottom detail. Copy E. Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection, Library of Congress
Color Plate 6 - Frontispiece to Experience. Songs of Innoncence and of Experience (1794)
Color Plate 8 - "The Sick Rose", Songs (1794), plate 39. Copy Z, 1826.
Color Plate 17 - "The Ancient of Days", Frontispiece, Europe_A Prophecy (1794), plate i. Copy K, ca. 1822.
Color plate 25 - Title page, Jerusalem (1804), plate 2. Copy E, ca. 1820.
Europe 9
