Connections With Blake
Today he is remembered for his 1806 book A Father's Memoirs of his Child, which leads off with a 48-page introduction consisting of a dedication to his friend Thomas Johnes and the earliest biographical account of Blake. Blake had designed (though it was engraved by Robert Cromek) the frontispiece depicting Malkin's deceased son. G.E. Bentley suggests that Malkin met Blake in 1803, soon after he returned to London from his three years in Felpham. It is also possible that the two men were acquainted via the publisher Joseph Johnson for whom Blake had worked. William Godwin reports meeting Malkin at dinner at Horne Tooke's in 1796 and 1797 and at Fuseli's Milton Gallery in 1800. It is therefore likely that Blake and Malkin shared radical sympathies. Malkin also lived close to Blake's patron Thomas Butts in Hackney, London and knew George Cumberland, another friend.
In addition to a short biography of Blake, Malkin published a number of Blake's lyric poems. This was the first time they had been published other than in Blake's own original illuminated etchings. Before the publication of Alexander Gilchrist's Life of William Blake in 1863, Malkin's book was the principal means of public knowledge of Blake's poetry. William Wordsworth copied poems from it.
Read more about this topic: Benjamin Heath Malkin
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