William Blake and the Cultures of Radical Christianity

William Blake (1757–1827), engraver, artist and poet, is now of course an internationally known figure whose reputation is that of a visionary possessed of an almost superhuman talent. Although an obituarist regarded him as ‘one of those ingenious persons ... whose eccentricities were still more remarkable than their professional abilities’, even in his own day this ‘religious mystic’ was lauded as an ‘extraordinary man’ in whom ‘all the elements of greatness’ were ‘unquestionably to be found’ (G.E. Bentley, Blake Records, 2nd edition, 2004, pp. 468, 594, 603). Understandably, the author of the book under review is keen to correct the ‘distorted image of Blake as either an isolated genius or as a poor madman’ through close attention to his subject's upbringing, friendships and intellectual milieu (p. 155). This has been a fruitful, if familiar, approach: scholars have explored Blake's biography and social network, locating his creative output within traditions

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