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William Blake
was born on November 28, 1757 in London at 28
Broad Street, Golden Square, where his father had
a successful hosiery business. Since Blake was an unruly
child his parents educated him at home instead of formal
school. He spent his youth roaming about London and
the countryside on the edge of town. He describes this
in a song from his Poetical Sketches which he
started writing at the age of thirteen:
How sweet
I roamed from field to field
And tasted all the summer's pride
At the age of about ten, Blake said that he saw his 'first vision'
when, sauntering along on Peckham Rye, he looked up
to see a tree filled with angels. According
to the accounts Blake gave of his literary development,
he was already reading the works of Milton and Isaiah
as a child.
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