Alexander Gilchrist

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Gilchrist: "Life of William Blake" 1863, title page.

Alexander Gilchrist (1828 – 30 November 1861), an English author, is known mainly as a biographer of William Etty and of William Blake.[1] Gilchrist's biography of Blake is still a standard reference work about the poet.

Gilchrist was born at

R.A.. In 1856 he became a next-door neighbour of his friend Thomas Carlyle at Chelsea and his wife Jane Welsh Carlyle, both of them notable writers. Gilchrist had all but finished his Life of William Blake when he contracted scarlet fever from one of his children and died.[2]

His wife Anne helped to complete the Life (his magnum opus),[1] and survived him by 24 years. Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his brother William also contributed to the completion of the book.

References

  1. ^ a b Holmes, Richard (29 May 2004). "Saving Blake". Guardian Unlimited. Retrieved 6 July 2009.
  2. ^ Wood, James, ed. (1907). "Gilchrist, Alexander" . The Nuttall Encyclopædia. London and New York: Frederick Warne.

Further reading