From the author’s introduction: "Blake’s life of Blake … would have been full of symbolic wild beasts and naked women, of monstrous clouds and colossal temples; and it would all have been highly incomprehensible, but none of it would have been irrelevant. All the biggest events of Blake’s life would have happened before he was born. But, on consideration, I think it will be better to tell the tale of Blake’s life first and go back to his century afterwards. It is not, indeed, easy to resist temptation, for there was much to be said about Blake before he existed. But I will resist the temptation and begin with the facts." - Summary by G.K. Chesterton