The Tyger, the Lamb, and the Terrible Desart

Book excerpt: The first section of this book follows Blake out of the family haberdashery shop, where his parents tacitly and unwittingly shaped his future as a poet; then into (and out of) the custody of Basire, Moser, and the Medway militia. The book then turns back to the days of Samuel Pepys for the crowning of King Mob, and for the formulation of systems of social control, particularly directed at the young. Gardner traces the exploitation of children (both poor and "the better sort") through the century and Blake's familiar knowledge of the rescue of workhouse children in his parish which he chronicled in Innocence. It was these turbulent decades that fostered Blake's reactions to what he saw in the city around him, and which became the poems and designs in Innocence and Experience. For Blake, "the terrible desart of London" was where the triad of State, Church and Imperial Commerce set the foundations of privilege and oppression. Respite from this for Blake lay among the Surrey hills south of the Thames, and in "organised Innocence". Illustrated with maps, drawings and engravings of the period this part demonstrates how remarkably Blake's vision responded to his times. The second part of this book includes complete facsimiles of two copies of each of fifty-four plates in the Songs set.