Blake after Blake: A Nation Discovers Genius

Abstract

The letter above, heretofore unpublished (British Library, shelf no. RP6421), is dated 28 November 1859 and is from Thomas Carlyle to Edward Chapman, of Chapman and Hall, his (and Dickens’s) publisher. Chapman, the literary mind of the firm, passed on Gilchrist’s manuscript, perhaps finding the subject insufficiently literary to ‘sell… a fair extent,’ or, like Carlyle, not quite sure what he was selling, a book about a ‘Painter, or Engraver.’ Macmillan published the biography, Life of Blake, in two volumes with 121 illustrations in 1863, marking the beginning of modern Blake studies. Its subtitle, Pictor Ignotus, or unknown painter, appears to acknowledge Carlyle’s uncertainty (the letter was sent via Gilchrist), and yet from another perspective it is misleading, as modern scholarship has revealed a Blake relatively well known during his life and shortly after his death.¹ He merited 24 pages in Benjamin Heath Malkin’s A Father’s Memoirs of his Son (1806); a review, albeit nasty, by Robert Hunt in the Examiner (1809) and another, albeit in German, by Henry Crabb Robinson (1811); at least seven obituary notices; 34 pages in Joseph Smith’s Nollekens and His Times (1828; 2nd edition 1829); 46 pages in Allan Cunningham’s Lives of British Artists (1830; republished 1831, 1837, 1839, 1842, 1844, 1846); reviews of Smith and Cunningham, including The Inventions of William Blake, Painter and Poet,’ in the London University Magazine (1830); and entries in various biographical dictionaries and encyclopaedias, including Matthew Pilkington’s A General Dictionary of Painters (1840; also 1852 and 1858) and Charles Knight’s The English Cyclopaedia (1856).²

Dear Sir, My Neighbor, Mr Gilchrist, has finished, or is on the point of finishing, a Book (to be in one Volume) on the Life of the Painter Blake, — Painter, or Engraver rather; a remarkable man, not unworthy of such a service. Mr Gilchrist w^d prefer you as a Publisher, if it suited; if &c &c; — and to you therefore I first of all despatch him for survey & scrutiny.

I have not myself seen the Book, or any part of it; but from conversation I gather that Mr G’s idea of the man is what I sh^d call accurate and good; the Book moreover is about the right size for such a subject; — and lastly I can predict with Confidence that it is faithfully done, and will be found an honest piece of delineation and examination. My own private guess w^d be that such a Volume might sell, to a fair extent; — at all events I am justified in requesting you to examine it a little till you are satisfied about it.

Which is all at present from

Yours truly T. Carlyle