Two new critical studies on Blake's art and poetry are to be published in Spring 2025 which promise to provide some highly anticipated new perspectives on the Romantic.
In March, Palgrave will issue William Blake and the Cartographic Imagination: Maps, Diagrams, Networksby Caroline Anjali Ritchie:
This book contributes to current discussions about the meaning, history, and theorisation of maps. The monograph focuses on William Blake (1757-1827), whose astute critical angle on cartography invites us to think in a new light about mapping in the eighteenth century, commonly regarded as a key phase within the history of European cartography. Ritchie positions Blake as a participant in a vibrant mesh of cartographic practices, seeking out his antecedents, peers, interlocutors, and followers. She characterises Blake’s participation in cartographic culture as both energetic and uneasy. In addition, the book traces Blake’s legacy as a point of contact for London-based psychogeographical writers and small-press publishers seeking to rethink the nature of maps and mapping in recent years and up to the present day. Through its exploration of Blake's poetry, art, and legacy, this book aims to pluralise and enrich conceptions of cartography from the eighteenth century to the present.
This is to be followed in May by Philip Hoare's William Blake and the Sea Monsters of Love: Art, Poetry, and the Imagining of a New World published by Pegasus:
Weaving between the historical, cultural, and personal, award-winning author Philip Hoare reveals a web of creative minds and artistic iconoclasts fired by the wild and revolutionary genius of William Blake. Blake is one of the greatest artists in western history. His art envelops us. He invented a way to put words and images on a page to express his poetry and art in a manner that has never been truly equaled. Even in his own time, his fans and followers were left speechless. Blake's heavenly bodies are our real selves, soaring beyond time and space. His art is a time machine. We can climb aboard and be taken to the stars. Blake accepted no limits to the human spirit.
William Blake and the Cartographic Imagination: Maps, Diagrams, Networksand William Blake and the Sea Monsters of Love: Art, Poetry, and the Imagining of a New World are available to pre-order from all good book stores.