William Blake was born on 28 November 1757. He was born in London (A,288). His father was James Blake, who had a shop near London for which he sold gloves and stockings. His father and mother, Catherine, had seven children and, sadly, two of them did not live. Blake had the power to see visions (a,288). His mother once beat him because he ran in and claimed to have seen an Ezekiel under a tree outside. He once said he saw a tree of angels. When Blake was four years old, he told his mother that God had put his head against the window. All his life he was haunted by images of humans in small, dark places. These are present in almost all of his projects. Blake had direct experience of prisons in this period (a,288). During the Gordon Riots in 1788, he went to the front with the mob and saw the storming of the new prison and the escape of 300 prisoners. He also saw him more than once during his life. Blake truly appreciated his power to see visions. This indicates that he could see things in his head that no one else could ever see (a,289). They would be so real that anyone ...