Born in London, William Blake (1757-1827) wrote poetry and worked as a painter and printmaker. His works went largely unrecognized during his lifetime, but have since come to be appreciated as among the most important to be produced in the Romantic Age.

Blake occupies a very special place in the pantheon of English Romanticism: just as innovative and brilliant in the figurative arts as in the field of poetry, his works are often difficult to categorize and, while constantly harking back to a classical and biblical past, they also look forward to the future and find resonance there - with authors such as T.S. Eliot, Aldous Huxley and the Beat poets among his many modern admirers.

This volume includes a comprehensive selection of Blake's poetry, from the early Songs of Innocence and Experience to his later "prophetic works", covering almost four decades of poetical activity and displaying the author's originality and independence of mind at their sparkling best.