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XVII. William Blake and His Companions from 1818 to 1827

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Extract

Without the last nine years of William Blake's life, and without a few letters, we should have, on one side, his writings; on the other side, the works of his biographers, and between, a great gulf fixed, where the unpremeditated record of his everyday friends and companions ought to be. But these nine years throw a bridge across the gulf, a bizarre bridge, to be sure, the foundations of which, nevertheless, go down to the rock of first-hand evidence. During them he was as companioned as, in the just preceding years, he had been neglected; during them he was known and observed by a variety of men, quack astrologers, young painters, a persistent reporter, a steady-going friend.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1924

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References

1 In Urania, No. 1, London, 1825, p. 70, reprinted by Arthur Symons, William Blake, 1907. p. 339 ff.

2 Alfred T. Story, James Holmes and John Varley, 1894.

3 Symons, op. cit., pp. 421 ff.

4 Ibid., p. 353.

5 The lives of Calvert, Finch, and Palmer are detailed in: A Memoir of Edward Calvert, by his Third Son, 1893; Memorials of Francis Oliver Finch, by Mrs. E. Finch, 1865; Life and Letters of Samuel Palmer, by A. H. Palmer, 1892.

Richmond was consulted by Alexander Gilchrist in the preparation of his Life of William Blake, 2 Vols., 1863. Tatham left a manuscript Life of William Blake printed in The Letters of William Blake, edited by A. G. B. Russell, 1906.

6 Selections from Robinson's Diary and Reminiscences have been printed in: (a) Thomas Sadler, Diary, Reminiscences, and Correspondence of Henry Crabb Robinson, 2 Vols., 1872; (b) Symons, op. cit., pp. 253 ff.; (c) Edith J. Morley, Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Lamb, etc. being Selections from the Remains of Henry Crabb Robinson, 1922.

7 Goeffrey Keynes, Bibliography of William Blake, Grolier Club, N. Y., 1921. p. 335.

8 Alfred T. Story, Life of John Linnell, 1892.

9 Sadler, op. cit. I, 385.