Product Description

This illustrated biography of William Blake, the great English artist, poet and mystic, seeks to encompass virtually everything that is known of his life and times. Often invoking the words of Blake's own contemporaries, G.E. Bentley describes the struggles of Blake's youth, his gradual embrace of the power of the spirit and visionary art and literature, and the serenity he achieved in his old age.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #202862 in Books
• Published on: 2003-04-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 632 pages

Review
"Everyone who loves Blake will be grateful to have, at last, a thoroughly reliable, fully documented and closely detailed life of him. It is an unlooked-for bonus that the book is beautifully designed." Grevel Lindop, Times Literary Supplement "Bentley affectionately and authoritatively renders the life of the artist who's now considered less madman than visionary. Via Blake's writings and drawings, records of his intimates, and thorough treatments of artworks, Bentley evokes something of the whole man - an eccentric genius who saw the world as a product of personal imagination." Publishers Weekly "Certain to become the standard biography of Blake." Choice "A masterful monument having some of the energy and irresistible authority of Blake himself." Tom D'Evelyn, The Providence Sunday Journal "A splendid account and a fitting capstone to Bentley's lifetime of Blake scholarship." FIRST THINGS

Publishers Weekly
"Bentley affectionately and authoritatively renders the life of the artist who’s now considered less madman than visionary. Via Blake’s writings and drawings, records of his intimates, and thorough treatments of artworks, Bentley evokes something of the whole man - an eccentric genius who saw the world as a product of personal imagination."

Choice
"Certain to become the standard biography of Blake."

Customer Reviews

A Gem
This is a gem of a book for anyone interested in Blake. It is comprehensive, well written, and covers all aspects of his life, art, and background in an interesting way. Even if your interest in Blake is one of mere curiosity, you will get a lot out of this book. Its profuse illustrations are impressive, with 136 (yes, one-hundred-and-thirty-six) plates, mostly in colour, and many more illustrations besides. The author's technique of breaking the main chapters down into small, self-contained sections is also ideal for anyone wanting to browse. I cannot recommend this strongly enough. It is absolutely first class.

The oustanding biography of William Blake
As the first reviewer noted, this is the oustanding biography of William Blake.

The fruit of the work of a lifetime by one of the greatest of all of Blake scholars, it manages to be extremely detailed and thorough, while being eminently readable. It is both affectionate towards its subject while being critically exacting and helpful in its judgments. Its superiority over other biographies of Blake, such as Ackroyd's, largely relies in its scrupulous attention to primary sources, Bentley's determination to avoid too much critical speculation on Blake based on interpretations of his texts where corroborating primary evidence from Blake's life is slight and an extremely firm sense of the historical period and the geographical location in which the poet and painter worked. Bentley has no special position on Blake in this book and therefore no thesis to advance as such, though there are many other books available presenting speculations about Blake and his work which may or may not be true of course. Bentley seldom strays outside of the fact as we know them while noting that there is so much about Blake we do not know and perhaps never will.

Short of some new factual discovery which changes what we know of Blake definitively, it is hard to see this book being bettered for a very long time. If you are studing Blake's work, then this isn't a work of criticism and does not discuss the many and varied interpretations of his poetry and art in detail, nor does it claim to be anything else than a biography. However, the facts are fascinating enough to create an enthralling narrative of the life one of the greatest and strangest figures in British culture.