bio notes:
born: 11/28/1757
died: 8/12/1827
born as: William Blake

English poet, painter, engraver, and visionary mystic whose hand-illustrated series of lyrical and epic poems from one of the most strikingly original and independent bodies of work in the Western cultural tradition. Ignored by the public of his day, he is now regarded as one of the earliest and greatest figures of Romanticism. - Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature