Character Catalog

A poetry collection in two parts, engraved and illuminated by Blake himself, contrasting the purity of childhood with the corruption of the adult world. The poem 'The Tyger' is one of the most celebrated in English poetry, studied in schools around the world.

A major philosophical and satirical work in which Blake overturns conventional moral values by arguing that what is called 'evil' is in reality creative energy. This visionary text anticipates many currents of modern thought.

A prophetic epic celebrating the American Revolution as a liberation from tyranny, featuring the character Orc as a symbol of youthful rebellion. The first of Blake's major 'Prophetic Books', blending personal mythology with contemporary history.

A late masterpiece and monumental mythological epic across 100 engraved plates, tracing the fall and spiritual redemption of Albion, a symbolic figure for England. Considered Blake's most ambitious and complex work.

A series of 21 engravings depicting the biblical figure of Job, commissioned by John Linnell, regarded as the pinnacle of Blake's graphic art. These illustrations reveal his absolute mastery of line and his spiritual vision of human suffering.

An unfinished series of 102 watercolors illustrating Dante's work, begun while Blake was learning Italian at the age of 67. Left incomplete at his death, these pieces bear witness to a creativity and ambition that remained undiminished until the very end of his life.

Tyger Tyger, burning bright, / In the forests of the night; / What immortal hand or eye, / Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings. / The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.

I am not ashamed, afraid, or averse to tell you what Ought to be Told: That I am under the direction of Messengers from Heaven, Daily & Nightly.

I must Create a System or be enslav'd by another Man's. I will not Reason and Compare: my business is to Create.

To generalize is to be an idiot. To particularize is the alone distinction of merit. General knowledges are those knowledges that idiots possess.

William Blake's birthplace, in the busy commercial neighbourhood of Soho. It was in this urban London environment that he developed his first mystical visions from childhood.

Blake worked here as a young apprentice engraver under James Basire, sketching medieval tombs and sculptures. This immersion in Gothic art profoundly influenced his monumental visual style and his fascination with the spiritual.

The neighbourhood where Blake lived from 1790 to 1800, the period of his greatest creativity, during which he produced the majority of his Prophetic Books. It was here that he engraved and printed The Marriage of Heaven and Hell and Songs of Experience.

A coastal village where Blake spent three years (1800–1803) under the patronage of William Hayley. He began Jerusalem there and experienced the incident with a soldier named Schofield that led to his trial for sedition.

The address where Blake lived from 1803 to 1821, in relative poverty but continuing to create. He received a number of admiring visitors there, including the painter John Constable and the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

The Nonconformist burial ground where William Blake was interred in 1827, not far from his original grave, which has since been reidentified. This symbolic site also holds the remains of John Bunyan and Daniel Defoe, authors whom Blake greatly admired.