This date in 1757 saw the birth of the poet William Blake. 10 facts about him:
He was born in London, one of seven children born to James and Catherine Wright Blake. Only five of those children survived infancy. Blake’s favourite brother was Robert, who died of TB at the age of 24.
Blake was a very spiritual person and possibly psychic. He spoke of visions from an early age. At four, he claimed to see God’s head in a Window, and once while out for a walk with his parents, told them he could see “a tree filled with Angels, bright angelic wings bespangling every bough like stars.” His father was ready to beat him for such fanciful notions, but his mother intervened and saved him from that. He also claimed to have seen Satan on the staircase of his home in London.
He’s known for his poetry but in his lifetime his main occupation was as an artist and engraver. At 10, he was enrolled in art school, but when that became too expensive he was apprenticed to an engraver. At 21 he studied at the Royal Academy and made a living illustrating books with engravings and watercolours. Blake’s first important commission was to illustrate every page of Edward Young’s long poem Night Thoughts—a total of 537 watercolours.
There was perhaps a demonstration of Blake’s psychic abilities when his parents took him to meet the engraver they wanted him to apprentice for, William Ryland. Blake declared that “I do not like the man’s face: it looks as if he will live to be hanged!” Eleven years later, Ryland was hanged for forgery, one of the last criminals to be executed on the gallows known as Tyburn Tree. Blake, meanwhile, was apprenticed to another engraver, James Basire, instead.
He was jilted by a woman named Polly Wood, and soon after met a woman named Catherine Boucher, who expressed sympathy for his experience. After a year’s courtship, Blake married Catherine, who, at the time of their wedding, could not read or write. The couple had no children but Blake taught Catherine to read and write and to draw, so that she became an accomplished draftsman in her own right.
Not long after his marriage, Blake acquired a press for printing engravings and with a fellow apprentice named James Parker opened a print shop. Within a year, however, Blake left the business and returned to making rather than selling prints.
Illustration was his day job, but he wrote poetry from an early age, too. Through a friend, John Flaxman, he was introduced to Harriet Mathew, whose drawing room was a meeting place for artists and musicians. There, he read some of his poetry and was encouraged to publish a small book of poems called Poetical Sketches in 1783.
His favourite brother, Robert, died in 1787. Blake was at his deathbed, and said he saw a vision of his brother’s “released spirit ascend heavenward through the matter-of-fact ceiling, ‘clapping its hands for joy.’” After that, he continued to have visions of Robert and that it was Robert’s spirit which taught him “Illuminated Printing,” a method of painting his designs on copper in a liquid impervious to acid before the plate was etched and printed. This enabled Blake to be his own compositor, printer, binder, advertiser, and salesman for all his published poetry from then on.
Blake died in his rooms in Fountain Court, the Strand, London, on Aug. 12, 1827. He was buried in Bunhill Fields, a burial ground for Nonconformists, but he was given a funeral service by the Church of England.
In his lifetime, many considered William Blake to be quite mad, although today he’s seen as the earliest and most original of the Romantic poets. His works include The Lamb, The Tyger, London, and the lyrics to Jerusalem.
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Beta
(Combat Team Series #2)
Steff was abducted by an evil alien race, the Orbs, at fourteen. Used as a weapon for years, he eventually escapes, but his problems are just beginning. How does a man support himself when his only work experience is a paper round and using an Orb bio-integrated gun?
Warlord is an alien soldier who knows little but war. When the centuries-old conflict which ravaged his planet ends, he seeks out another world where his skills are still relevant. There are always wars on Earth, it seems. However, none of Earth's powerful armies want him.
Natalie has always wanted to visit England and sees a chance to do so while using her martial arts skills, but there are sacrifices she must make in order to fulfil her dream.
Maggie resorted to crime to fund her sister's medical care. She uses her genetic variant abilities to gain access to the rooms of wealthy hotel guests. The Ballards look like rich pickings, but they are not what they seem. When Maggie targets them, little does she know that she is walking into a trap.
Hotel owner Hamilton Lonsdale puts together a combat team to pit against those of other multi-millionaires. He recruits Warlord, Natalie, Maggie and Steff along with a trained gorilla, a probability-altering alien, a stockbroker whose work of art proved to be much more than he'd bargained for, a marketing officer who can create psionic forcefields, a teleporting member of the landed gentry, and a socially awkward fixer. This is Combat Team Beta.
Steff never talks about his time with the Orbs, until he finds a woman who lived through it, too. Steff believes he has finally found happiness, but it is destined to be short-lived. He is left with an unusual legacy which he and Team Beta struggle to comprehend; including why something out there seems determined to destroy it.
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