William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker.
At his home in Cambridge in 1811, he fell through a hole in time and found himself trapped in the netherworld of the Yssgaroth. He met the Seventh Doctor when the Doctor went through another hole in the Althosian system.
They visited Whitechapel during the Jack the Ripper murders in 1888, and 20th century England. Eventually he was returned to his home via the Doctor's TARDIS. (PROSE: The Pit)
In 1783, Blake made an engraving of his brother Robert's painting Approach of Doom. (PROSE: The Adventuress of Henrietta Street)
Blake was one of the guests at Bernice Summerfield and Jason Kane's wedding in Cheldon Bonniface on 24 April 2010. (PROSE: Happy Endings)
While in Switzerland in 1963, the Fifth Doctor jokingly told Nyssa that Blake, along with Walt Whitman, might have been a Time Lord. (AUDIO: Winter for the Adept)
Just before stepping out on what he thought was the Moon's surface, the Doctor misquoted Blake: "And did those feet, in ancient times, walk upon the moon's mountains green?" (PROSE: I Am a Dalek)
Behind the scenes[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Although not openly credited to William Blake, the opening verse of his poem, "The Tyger", is read aloud by Tommy in the television story Planet of the Spiders. The same poem would also inspire the title of a later television story, In the Forest of the Night.
- Blake is not explicitly identified as the author of the quote from I Am a Dalek, but from the context it is clear who it was intended.
- The book Newtons Sleep [+]Loading...["Newtons Sleep (novel)"] is named after a line in one of Blake's poems: "May God us keep / From Single vision & Newtons sleep."