Late one Sunday night in August 1827, William Blake sat in bed, completing a sketch of his wife Catherine. The sketch was the very last time Blake put pencil to paper, as he died right after (King 228). Until his very last moments, William Blake was a man of intense vision and artistic force, creating some of the most powerful and recognizable works of poetry and art to date. His works were a product of his eccentricity, his religious fervor, his socio-political progressivism and the industrial age of London in which he spent his life. William Blake was born on 28 November 1757 in his parents' house at 28 Broad Street in London. . He was born the son of a haberdasher to Catherine and James Blake as the third child in the family. The son of a merchant, Blake grew up in a household whose socio-economic status fell between poor working class and skilled middle class, as Daniel Defoe (King 2) dubbed him. From a very young age, William displayed a fiery temperament and a very stubborn attitude compared to that of his classmates. He was vehemently against all rules and regulations, to the point that his father decided not to send him to school. His attitude and temperament were most likely influenced by his position as the third child in the family, with his older brother John considered the favorite. This favoritism disturbed him deeply (King 6). To compound this, Blake, from a very young age, had visions that have been described as “epiphanic” (King 7). For example, at the age of four, Blake became frightened after seeing, as Morsberger describes, "God looking at him through a window" and a "tree full of angels and angels with the reapers in the field ". Morsber... middle of paper ...... into a "gnawing pain in the stomach". The fatal illness in which Blake grew up continued until his final days, during which he worked on another of his most famous, albeit incomplete, engraved works of art: the illustration of the Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri. Two days before his death, on August 10, 1827, Blake became completely bedridden. He continued to grow weaker and weaker, while continuing his work in engraving and drawing, his "last shillings being spent in sending for a pencil." Blake died on August 12, 1827, after telling his wife Catherine that she was a good wife and then painting a hasty portrait of her, his very last work on this Earth (King 228). Blake left behind his wife, Catherine, with nothing but the prints and manuscripts unsold or destroyed by his executor, and his poor reputation as an artist and writer..