Blake
September 23, 2019 - Comment
Poet, painter, engraver and visionary, Blake’s was a radical spirit fired by genius. Yet his life has remained an enigma. In this magnificent biography Peter Ackroyd discloses the true nature of William Blake’s life and art. Product Features New Mint Condition Dispatch same day for order received before 12 noon Guaranteed packaging No quibbles returns
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Vivid, scholarly and readable. I came to this book knowing nothing of the life of William Blake and little of his work other than a few famous pictures and the poem Jerusalem.Having finished this book I have come away with a very clear idea of Blake’s London with its array of characters; prostitutes, artists, publishers, benefactors, charlatans and, possibly most importantly, an assortment of religious belief systems.Somewhere in the back of mind I had understood Blake to be seen as a visionary and I must admit…
Ackroyd’s Blake Ackroyd’s “Blake” joins his “Dickens”, “Chaucer” and “Thomas More” and I cannot think of two better and more interestingly matched characters than Blake and Ackroyd, both writers, lovers of and inhabitants of London, a city which fascinates them.Three sections of illustrations, two black-and-white drawings and sketches and one colour section of Blake’s works, complement the scholarly text in which he builds a vivid picture of life in Blake’s London and the man himself…
So good! I have been a massive Blake fan since I was 16, and yes, whilst that makes me sound like a dweeb with no life, I can also safely assure anyone who is interested in William Blake’s life to pick up this book and buy it. Ackroyd is one of those writers who encaptures the whole picture, rather than just one part of it, and his chronicling of Blake’s life and works is interesting, clever, and in some places witty. It’s a book that is meant to capture the imagination of the reader and transport them…