WILLIAM BLAKE (1757-1827), self-educated visionary, religious dissenter and political radical, was little known in his own lifetime, much of which was spent in poverty, dependent on the support of friends and patrons. The Romantics read his work - Coleridge considered him a genius, Wordsworth thought he was mad - but it was not until the end of the nineteenth century, when he was taken up by the Pre-Raphaelites and Yeats edited an edition of his verse, that he was finally recognized as a leading English poet and a significant artist. 'Songs of Innocence' was published in 1789 and 'Songs of Experience' five years later. Blake did not go to school, but served a seven-year apprenticeship to an engraver. He printed his books himself from etched copper sheets, then coloured them by hand - with the result that no two copies are alike. The illustrations in this ebook are from one in the British Museum.