William Blake and the Cartographic Imagination - by Caroline Anjali Ritchie (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

This book contributes to current discussions about the meaning, history, and theorisation of maps. The monograph focuses on William Blake (1757-1827), whose astute critical angle on cartography invites us to think in a new light about mapping in the eighteenth century, commonly regarded as a key phase within the history of European cartography. Ritchie positions Blake as a participant in a vibrant mesh of cartographic practices, seeking out his antecedents, peers, interlocutors, and followers. She characterises Blake's participation in cartographic culture as both energetic and uneasy. In addition, the book traces Blake's legacy as a point of contact for London-based psychogeographical writers and small-press publishers seeking to rethink the nature of maps and mapping in recent years and up to the present day. Through its exploration of Blake's poetry, art, and legacy, this book aims to pluralise and enrich conceptions of cartography from the eighteenth century to the present.

From the Back Cover

While Blake has long been recognised as, in the words of Iain Sinclair, the "godfather of geography", his own systems of mapping the worlds of both London and the imagination remain a terra incognita for many readers. Whether she is discussing the networks of Blake's London, the globes and pathways of his spiritual worlds, or how his successors have taken his words as inspiration to build Golgonooza, Caroline Anjali Ritchie is an excellent guide to Blakean cartographies.

--Jason Whittaker, Secretary of the Global Blake Network, University of Lincoln

A measured and valuable transit across the works and legends of William Blake. Caroline Ritchie is the latest in a long line of inspired torch bearers. Above and beyond the meticulous scholarship is a sense of renewal and visionary continuity, the past whispering out of a diminishing future. Live your day aloud!

--Iain Sinclair, author of Blake's London: The Topographic Sublime

This book contributes to current discussions about the meaning, history, and theorisation of maps. The monograph focuses on William Blake (1757-1827), whose astute critical angle on cartography invites us to think in a new light about mapping in the eighteenth century, commonly regarded as a key phase within the history of European cartography. Ritchie positions Blake as a participant in a vibrant mesh of cartographic practices, seeking out his antecedents, peers, interlocutors, and followers. She characterises Blake's participation in cartographic culture as both energetic and uneasy. In addition, the book traces Blake's legacy as a point of contact for London-based psychogeographical writers and small-press publishers seeking to rethink the nature of maps and mapping in recent years and up to the present day. Through its exploration of Blake's poetry, art, and legacy, this book aims to pluralise and enrich conceptions of cartography from the eighteenth century to the present.

Caroline Anjali Ritchie is a Postdoctoral Fellow in English Literature 1760-1830 at Exeter College, University of Oxford, UK. She is the author of Artists Series: William Blake (Tate Publishing, 2024). Her articles on William Blake have appeared in Blake/An Illustrated Quarterly, Literary Geographies, and VALA: The Journal of the Blake Society.

Review Quotes

"In this study of maps and mapping in William Blake's rich, difficult, and copious complex of poems, maps, diagrams and disquisitions, Caroline Ritchie shows where and how the author treats cartography with 'agonistic' attraction and suspicion. ... Ritchie is to be congratulated for a vital contribution to the growing field of the study of literature, art, and cartography." (Tom Conley, Imago Mundi, Vol. 77 (2), 2025)

About the Author

Caroline Anjali Ritchie is a Postdoctoral Fellow in English Literature 1760-1830 at Exeter College, University of Oxford, UK. She is the author of Artists Series: William Blake (Tate Publishing, 2024). Her articles on William Blake have appeared in Blake/An Illustrated Quarterly, Literary Geographies, and VALA: The Journal of the Blake Society.