There are many—too many—resources on William Blake in the world. A few that I found most useful:
The Life of William Blake by Alexander Gilchrist (1863, and recently re issued)
Blake by Peter Ackroyd (1995)
The Stranger from altParadise: A Biography of William Blake by G. E. Bentley, Jr. (2001)
Blake Records (2nd edition) edited by G. E. Bentley, Jr. (2004)
William Blake (Tate Britain exhibition catalog) by Robin Hamlyn et al. (2001), particularly the section on Lambeth by Michael Phillips
William Blake by Kathleen Raine (1970)
William Blake: The Creation of the Songs by Michael Phillips (2000)
“Blake and the Terror, 1792–1793” by Michael Phillips, in TheLibrary, sixth series, vol. 16, no. 4 (December 1994), pp. 263–97
“No. 13 Hercules Buildings, Lambeth: William Blake’s Printmaking Workshop and Etching-Painting Studio Recovered” by Michael Phillips, in The British Art Journal, vol. 5, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 2004), pp. 13–21
The most comprehensive Internet resource on Blake is undoubtedly the William Blake Archive at www.blakearchive.org.
I am going to list only the most entertaining of the myriad works that have helped me to re-create eighteenth-century London, as well as a selection of resources useful for more specific topics:
The Autobiography of Francis Place edited by Mary Thale (1972); also the archive of Francis Place held at the British Library
London Life in the 18th Century by M. Dorothy George (1925)
On Lambeth Marsh by Graham Gibberd (1992)
A to Z of Regency London (1985): a remarkably detailed map made of London by Richard Horwood from 1792 to 1799 (with subsequent updates); also available online at www.motco.com
The Shadow of the Guillotine: Britain and the French Revolution edited by David Bindman (1989)
Astley’s Amphitheatre and the Early Circus in England, 1768–1830 (Ph.D. thesis) by Marius Kwint (1994); also the archive of Astley’s cuttings from newspapers held at the British Library
Buttony by Mervyn Bright (1971)
The English Regional Chair by Bernard D. Cotton (1990)
The punctuation Blake used in reproducing his poems was erratic and confusing; I have taken the liberty of stripping it away so that it can be read aloud more easily; readers who would like to see it as he printed it should refer to The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake, newly revised edition, edited by David V. Erdman (1988). I am aware too that Blake’s poem “London” would likely have been in an earlier draft when Jem hears it in Bunhill Fields, but I’ve used the final version so as not to confuse everyone.
I would like to thank the following people who helped me during the making of this book:
Robin Hamlyn, curator at the Tate Collection, London; Chris Fletcher and his successor, Jamie Andrews, at the British Library, who allowed me to handle Blake’s notebook without flinching; Greg Jecman at the National Gallery of Art and Daniel De Simone at the Library of Congress, both Washington, DC; Sheila O’Connell at the Prints and Drawings Room of the British Museum; Tim Heath, president of the Blake Society (UK);
Marius Kwint, expert on Philip Astley, whom I hope will write a biography about him, for Astley was probably even more outrageous than I have portrayed him;
Mike and Sally Howard-Tripp, who first introduced me to the joys of Piddletrenthide;
Thelma Johns of the Old Button Shop in Lytchett Minster, Dorset, for sharing her knowledge and her Dorset buttons;
Guy Smith of Dorchester, for help with Piddle Valley pub names;
Lindsey Young and Alexandria Lawrence for their able assistance; Zoë Clarke for capable copy editing; Jonny Geller and Deborah Schneider, star agents; and editors Susan Watt and—new to the team, and what would we do without her—Carole DeSanti, pushing me to flex muscles I didn’t know I had;
Laura Devine, who bravely bought the privilege of allowing me to name a character after her, at an auction to raise funds for the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture (UK).
My single greatest debt, however, is to Blake scholar Michael Phillips, whose groundbreaking, attentive, and blessedly commonsensical work on Blake during his Lambeth years inspired me to focus on this period, and specifically on 1792 and 1793. His biography of Blake in Lambeth during the anti-Jacobin Terror in Britain is nearing completion, and will do much to help us understand this most complicated, unusual man. I eagerly await it.