William Blake

Born in London in 1757, William Blake trained as an engraver and built a career that moved across poetry, painting, and printmaking. He is now remembered as a major figure of the Romantic era, though during his lifetime he was often seen as unusual and was far less widely celebrated than he is today.

Blake wrote some of the best-known poems in English, including pieces from Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. What makes his work especially distinctive is the way he joined words and images together, producing illustrated books that carried his poetry in a visual form as well as a literary one.

His writing can be simple and musical on the surface, but it also opens into big questions about innocence, suffering, faith, freedom, and imagination. That mix of clarity, intensity, and visionary power is a big part of why readers keep returning to him nearly two centuries after his death in London in 1827.