William Blake

A painter, poet and engraver, William Blake (1757-1827) was born in London. Poetical Sketches, his first volume of poetry, was published in 1783 and was followed by several of his best-known works: Songs of Innocence (1789), The Book of Thiel (1789), The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790-3), Songs of Experience (1794) and Jerusalem (1804-20).
James Fenton was born in Lincoln in 1949 and educated at Magdalen College, Oxford where he won the Newdigate Prize for poetry. He has worked as political journalist, drama critic, book reviewer, war correspondent, foreign correspondent and columnist. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and was Oxford Professor of Poetry for the period 1994-99. In 2007, James Fenton was awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry.