60 Fun Facts About William Blake

In which London district was William Blake born in 1757?

The house at 28 Broad Street, now Broadwick Street, has long since gone.

What was the trade of Blake's father, James?

Blake was the third of seven children, two of whom died in infancy.

At what age did Blake leave school, after which his mother educated him at home?

He was instead enrolled in Henry Pars's drawing school in the Strand.

As a boy on Peckham Rye, Blake claimed to have seen a tree filled with what?

His father was ready to thrash him for lying until his mother intervened.

Which Old Testament prophet did the young Blake claim had visited him?

He also described seeing God's face pressed against his window.

To which engraver was Blake apprenticed for seven years from 1772?

His father paid £52.10 for the apprenticeship; Blake later added the man's name to a list of artistic enemies, then crossed it out.

Sketching the monuments of which building during his apprenticeship shaped Blake's Gothic style?

A memorial to Blake and his wife was placed there in 1957.

In June 1780 Blake was swept along by a mob that stormed Newgate Prison during which upheaval?

They were sparked by a bill easing sanctions on Roman Catholics and prompted the creation of the first police force.

Which institution's founding president, Joshua Reynolds, did the student Blake rebel against in 1779?

He nonetheless exhibited there six times between 1780 and 1808.

In which church did Blake marry Catherine Boucher in August 1782?

He had met her in Battersea the year before, after a failed courtship, and won her over by asking 'Do you pity me?'

How did the illiterate Catherine sign her wedding contract?

Blake later taught her to read, write and print, and she coloured many of his books.

What was Blake's first poetry collection, published around 1783 after a dinner-party recital won him patrons?

He performed his juvenile verse and the guests funded the printing.

What printing method did Blake invent in 1788, at the age of 31?

He called it illuminated printing and used it for most of his later books, hand-colouring the pages in watercolour.

How many poems were in the original Songs of Innocence, first printed in 1789?

Songs of Experience, with 26 poems, followed in 1794.

Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1794) is subtitled 'Shewing the Two Contrary States' of what?

Innocence is mostly pastoral and happy; Experience answers it with corruption and injustice.

'The Tyger' was written as the counterpart to which poem from Songs of Innocence?

Antithesis was a recurring theme in Blake's thinking.

What metre is 'The Tyger' largely written in?

It is one of the most anthologised poems in English.

Which repeated image in Blake's poem 'London' suggests inescapable psychological control?

The poem also repeats the word 'chartered' for the streets and the Thames.

Blake's title The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is an ironic reference to a book by which theologian?

His Heaven and Hell had appeared in Latin 33 years earlier; Blake criticises him directly in the text.

The most famous section of Blake's 1790s Marriage is a list of aphorisms known by what title?

Blake's Hell is a source of unrepressed energy rather than a place of punishment.

Aldous Huxley took the title of which book from a line in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell?

Huxley's book in turn gave the rock band The Doors their name.

In Blake's mythology, which bearded figure embodies conventional reason and law?

He is often shown with architect's tools or nets to trap people in webs of law.

Blake's design The Ancient of Days first appeared as the frontispiece to which 1794 work?

It shows a crouching figure with a compass, and the same idea reappeared in his print of Newton the next year.

Blake's 1795 print Newton shows the scientist drawing on a scroll with which instrument?

Eduardo Paolozzi's giant bronze of the image sits outside the British Library.

Blake's Newton is one of twelve large colour prints that also includes images of which Babylonian king?

The prints were made between 1795 and 1805.

Which sculptor's 1995 bronze Newton, after William Blake stands in the British Library piazza?

The bronze translates Blake's monotype into three dimensions.

In which Sussex village did Blake spend his only three years outside London?

He was born in Soho and died off the Strand.

In 1800 Blake moved to a Sussex cottage to illustrate the works of which minor poet?

He came to resent his patron as interested only in 'the meer drudgery of business'.

In 1803 Blake was tried for sedition after a scuffle with a soldier who claimed he had shouted what?

He was cleared at the Chichester assizes.

The poem now sung as the hymn 'Jerusalem' comes from the preface to which of Blake's epics?

He began the work in his Felpham cottage; its title page is dated 1804.

Who set 'And did those feet in ancient time' to music in 1916?

He wrote it for a Fight for Right campaign meeting at Queen's Hall despite doubts about the group's ultra-patriotism.

Whose 1922 orchestration of 'Jerusalem' is usually heard at the Last Night of the Proms?

He rescored it for a very large orchestra for the Leeds Festival.

Which organisation held the copyright of Parry's 'Jerusalem' from 1928 to 1968?

Suffragists had adopted the song in 1917 and Millicent Fawcett persuaded Parry to let them use it.

The Albion Flour Mills, London's first major factory, stood in which district?

The building burned down in 1791.

Which political party used 'Jerusalem' as a campaign slogan in the 1945 general election?

Clement Attlee promised to build 'a new Jerusalem'.

Which king said on first hearing the orchestral 'Jerusalem' that he preferred it to 'God Save the King'?

There have since been repeated calls to make it England's official anthem.

Blake's 1809 exhibition was meant to sell an engraving of characters from which work?

Its only review, in The Examiner, was hostile, though his Descriptive Catalogue is still prized as Chaucer criticism.

Which patron bought many of Blake's Bible illustrations, seeing him more as a friend than a serious artist?

That attitude was typical of how Blake was regarded during his lifetime.

Which young artist, met in 1818, commissioned Blake's late masterpieces including the Dante engravings?

A blue plaque at Old Wyldes in Hampstead commemorates the two men.

Blake's Divine Comedy commission was cut short by his death. How many engravings reached proof?

Only a handful of the watercolours were finished, but they are counted among his richest work.

Samuel Palmer belonged to a group of young Blake admirers who called themselves what?

Blake met Palmer through John Linnell.

The Ghost of a Flea was painted for 'Visionary Heads' commissioned by which watercolourist and astrologer?

The two men held late-night sessions in which Varley tried to summon historical spirits for Blake to draw.

The Ghost of a Flea is notable for its innovative use of what?

The tiny panel, only about 21 by 16 cm, hangs in Tate Britain.

Where did Blake spend his final years, in a property later demolished for the Savoy Hotel?

He died there on 12 August 1827, after promising his wife he would be with her always.

Blake was buried in which burial ground for religious dissenters, alongside Bunyan and Defoe?

His exact grave was not marked until 12 August 2018, 191 years after his death.

Blake's true grave was finally marked in which year?

The 1957 memorial stone stands about 20 metres from the actual spot.

Which Irish poet edited an edition of Blake's collected works in 1893 and drew on him for ideas?

British surrealists such as Paul Nash and Graham Sutherland also drew on Blake's visionary practice.

Which poet said Blake's madness interested him 'more than the sanity of Lord Byron and Walter Scott'?

Blake had once shared his high hopes for the French Revolution.

Blake believed his artworks were personally commissioned, read and enjoyed by whom?

He said he was instructed and encouraged by them throughout his life.

Which uncompleted prophetic book, begun in 1797, is the first to name the Four Zoas?

The Zoas were created by the fall of Albion in Blake's mythology.

Which 2019 exhibition gave particular focus to Catherine Blake's role in her husband's work?

The Tate says she mixed and applied his paint colours.

Blake had great hopes for the French Revolution and reportedly wore what in solidarity?

He despaired once Robespierre and the Terror took hold.

Which 1960s rock frontman is among the songwriters who cited Blake as an influence?

Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, Richard Ashcroft and Bruce Dickinson are also on the list, along with beat poet Allen Ginsberg.

Instead of school, the ten-year-old Blake was enrolled in drawing classes run by whom in the Strand?

His parents knew his headstrong temperament and bought him enough prints and books to suggest the family was comfortably off.

Which dealer hired Thomas Stothard to paint the Canterbury pilgrims after hearing Blake's idea?

Feeling cheated, Blake broke with Stothard and mounted his own ill-fated exhibition in his brother's haberdashery shop.

Roughly how many copies of Songs of Innocence and of Experience had Blake sold by the time he died?

Each copy was printed, hand-coloured and stitched by Blake and his wife Catherine, who mixed and applied his paints.

Vaughan Williams based his ballet Job: A Masque for Dancing on Blake's illustrations of what?

Blake began the Job illustrations at 65; John Ruskin later compared them favourably to Rembrandt.

Which acquaintance allegedly burned Blake manuscripts he thought heretical after joining the Irvingites?

Catherine Blake had moved into his house as housekeeper after her husband's death, and he took over selling Blake's works.

In Blake's mythology, which of the Four Zoas represents the heart and love?

Urizen is the head, Urthona the loins and imagination, and Tharmas the unity of the body.

Blake was baptised at St James's Church, Piccadilly, even though his family belonged to which sect?

The Blakes were English Dissenters, and Blake himself was eventually buried among dissenters at Bunhill Fields.