On Blinks and Kisses, Monkeys and Bears: Dating William Blake's An Island in the Moon

It has been generally agreed that William Blake compiled the materials for his early satire An Island in the Moon in 1784 or 1785. While David V. Erdman stood firm for 1784, R. J. Shroyer contended that it was more likely to have been produced in the latter year. This essay argues that Blake might have worked on the manuscript as late as March 1786, after the publication of Hester Lynch Piozzi's Anecdotes of the Late Samuel Johnson. Allusions in Blake's holograph could refer to Piozzi's famous "Blinking Sam" anecdote in that work and to two satiric prints depicting Johnson and Boswell during their tour to the Hebrides, published only three weeks later on April 19, 1786. The many autobiographical and, at times, abstruse references in An Island further raise the possibility that Blake wrote it to comfort his fading brother Robert, who died of tuberculosis in February 1787.