s an engraver for a local Bookseller, and Blake continued toearn an often precarious living from contracted engraving until, with the help of his friendJohn Flaxman (1755-1826), he was able to set up his own engraving business at 27 BroadStreet, which proved not to be a successful enterprise. It is from this point, 1784, that Blake's career as an engraver-poet-prophet began in earnest.Working with the help of his dedicated wife Catherine Boucher (the daughter of a marketgardener, whom he married in 1782), Blake divided his time between composing andengraving illustrated poetry, and eking out a precarious living as a contract engraver. Hisfirst works in illustrated painting - All Religions Are One and There is No NaturalReligion (1788) - followed on from the satirical verse of An Island in the Moon (1784-5),but it was in 1789, the year of the French Revolution and the Storming of the Bastille, thatsaw Blake's early masterpieces, The Book of Thel and Songs of Innocence. Between 1789 and 1800, when the Blake's moved to Felpham, Blake was ferociouslyactive, composing The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790-93), The French Revolution(1791), America: A Prophecy (1793), Visions of the Daughters of Albion (1793), TheBook of Urizen (1794), the Songs of Experience (1793-4), Europe: A Prophecy(1794) The Book of Los (1795) and The Four Zoas (1795-1804). Uniting all of these wasan extraordinary mixture of apocalyptic vision, political fervour, revisions of Christiantheology and psychological exploration. Part of the reason for this extraordinary creativeenergy was that Blake felt compelled to work through his responses to the politicalupheavals of in Europe and America in this period. The American Revolution of 1775, andthe Declaration of Independence in 1783 was, for Blake, just one example of youthfulenergetic rebellion against the forces of Autocratic Authority. Blake, who met Tom Paine inthe early 1790s, sided with the American forces, mythologisi...
