Introduction

William Blake had three professional careers which brought him to the notice of contemporary connoisseurs: ¹ first as a competent engraver, for which he was trained for seven years (1772–9) as an apprentice under Basire; second as an original and powerful designer, an ‘inventor’ of graphic ideas, for which he studied at the Royal Academy from 1779; and third as an untutored author of appealing lyrics, of bewildering Prophecies, and of outrageous criticism. His ability as an engraver was probably creditably known all his working life throughout the small professional world concerned with reproductive engravings; it was a socially and professionally humble world from which not many comments survive. His ‘extravagant’ designs were increasingly known from about 1796 to connoisseurs in London, to a few patrons of watercolour painting, and to buyers of the illustrated editions of Blair’s Grave (1808, 1813). His poetry was almost entirely ignored until after his death; none of his books of poetry was reviewed during his lifetime, and the few surviving casual judgments stress their wildness and originality.