The Annual General Meeting (AGM) of The Blake Society will be held on 17 January 2024 at 7.30 PM, UK time. The meeting will be online, via Zoom, for anyone who wishes to attend.

The AGM itself will last about half an hour – and be followed by a talk from writer and archaeologist, David Mullin about Blake and the Ancients. When we gather, we can all share a toast into the New Year, too. Non-members are also welcome to attend – we’ve got a great event lined up!

In Search of Paradise: William Blake at Old Wyldes

To celebrate the publication of Louisa Albani’s latest Blake pamphlet, on which he collaborated, David Mullin will explore the period towards the end of Blake’s life when he was working on his Job and Dante illustrations.

It was a time when he was befriended by a group of young artists who called themselves The Ancients and who became profoundly influenced by him. These included the portrait painter George Richmond, printmaker Edward Calvert and landscape artist Samuel Palmer. One of the locations the group met was at the house of artist and Blake patron John Linnell, who had moved out of London to a house, now called Old Wyldes, in Hampstead. Blake and Palmer would walk to the house together and it was there Palmer met his future wife Hannah Linnell. The group assembled at Old Wyldes was a curious mix of older, established artists, their pupils and friends.

It is apposite that Blake was working on his Dante illustrations at the time, as he became a kind of guide to the younger artists, helping them develop their practise and providing them with different ways of seeing their world, passing on his visionary inspiration at the end of his life.

David Mullin is an archaeologist and writer who lives in West Yorkshire. He is in the process of finishing a book about Samuel Palmer.

Louisa Albani’s pamphlet, In Search of Paradise: William Blake at Old Wyldes, is available from her website, Treadwells  and London Review Bookshop.