Alexander Gilchrist

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Alexander Gilchrist (1828 – November 30, 1861) was the biographer of William Blake; the biography is still the standard reference work on the poet.

He was born at Newington Green, England, son of a Unitarian minister. Although he was called to the Bar, literary and art criticism became his main pursuit. He settled at Guildford in 1853, where he wrote Life of William Etty, R.A. In 1856 he became a next-door-neighbour of his supporter Thomas Carlyle at Chelsea, and had all but finished his The Life of William Blake when he contracted scarlet fever from one of his children and died.

His wife Anne was his intellectual peer. She helped to complete her husband's Life of Blake, and survived him by 24 years. Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his brother William also contributed to the completion of the book.

[edit] See also

• The Life of William Blake, edited and with an introduction by W. Graham Robinson. ISBN 0-486-40005-0 (Dover).

This article incorporates text from the public domain 1907 edition of The Nuttall Encyclopædia.