ABSTRACT
Blake’s father kept a modest stocking shop near Soho Square, and the poet lived most of his life (except for 1800–3) in the neighbourhood. William Blake, born on 28 November 1757, was the third of seven children. The most important member of the family, so far as William was concerned, was his much younger brother Robert, who died at the age of nineteen in 1787 and who appeared to the poet regularly there-after in visions.
