William Blake was an artist and poet, claimed by many critics to have pre-figured the Romantic era of literature and art. Largely ignored and sometimes taken for a madman during life, fame came to him long years after his death in 1827. Described by a biographer as "a stranger in paradise," Blake's literary and artistic ideas were of a spiritual and ethereal nature, making it difficult to place him in any particular period of creative work. Known philosophical influences included the American and French Revolutions, including the egalitarian ideals of the Enlightenment.

Born in London in 1757 to Protestant Dissenter parents, Blake grew up an indulged child in a pious, yet liberal thinking household. His parents early identified him as gifted and provided him with art lessons, books to read, and models from which to practice his drawing. Though raised Protestant Christian, Blake scorned organized religion and spent his life formulating his own pantheon of deities, which included but was not restricted to, Biblical figures. He began writing poetry as a pre-adolescent. His earliest poems were later published in the collection - Poetical Sketches (1783). At age fourteen he was apprenticed to an engraver, later using his practical and artistic skills to engrave his illuminated books. In 1782 Blake married Katherine Boucher, who adopted her husband's political and spiritual philosophies and who assisted him in his engraving work. The couple were devoted to one another but had no children.

Inspired by the teachings of Emmanuel Swedenborg, the work of Swiss poet Johann Kasper Lavater, and his friendship with Henry Fuseli, in 1789 Blake wrote what would be his defining work, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. The poetical list of advice and admonitions served as Blake's manifesto for equal rights between the sexes and for sexual freedom. At around the same time Blake apparently became associated with the Johnson Circle, a group of erudite London intellectuals which included Mary Wollstonecraft. Critics continue to speculate whether or not Blake and Wollstonecraft knew one another, but it is known that he illustrated one of her works and it is clear her call for women's rights was an influence for Blake's Visions of the Daughters of Albion (c.1792) Despite his literary support of women's rights, much of Blake's later work concerns his lifelong interest in the physical reunification of the sexes. He seemed to have desired rights for women not for the sake of women but as an important step towards his idea of returning humans to a pre-Edenic Fall state of living.

Blake's later life was one of poverty, largely due to a lack of interest in his work. He maintained his artistic and literary dedication to the very end, working even on his deathbed. His spiritual life continued to the end as well, for he died singing hymns, and spoke of angelic visions.

Image: Portrait of William Blake by Thomas Phillips, painted in 1807. The original hangs in the National Portrait Gallery, London.