Birth of William Blake

William Blake was born on 28 November 1757 in London. An English poet, painter and printmaker, Blake produced a body of work that was largely ignored during his life and later recognized as visionary. His books, such as Songs of Innocence and of Experience, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell and Jerusalem, combined his own verses with illustrations that he engraved and colored by hand. He criticized organized religion, rationalism and social injustice, and described his own mystical visions of angels and prophets. Poems like The Tyger and London are among the best known in English. He lived largely in London and worked as an engraver, and he was later claimed as a forerunner of the Romantics.

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