Phillip Hoare's 'William Blake and the Sea Monsters of Love' Blends Biography with Personal Essay

Phillip Hoare's new book 'William Blake and the Sea Monsters of Love,' published in 2025 by Pegasus Books, defies conventional biography and art history. The narrative begins not with Blake's birth but with him at age 43 moving to Felpham, England. Hoare, a distinguished writer who won the 2009 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction for 'Leviathan or the Whale,' interweaves Blake's life with figures such as Derek Jarman, Paul Nash, Oscar Wilde, and John Singer Sargent. The book is structured in three sections, the first focusing on Blake and his wife Catherine, the second on Paul Nash, and the third on a broader range of figures including David Bowie, James Joyce, Iris Murdoch, and Francis Bacon. Hoare emphasizes Blake's unique printmaking techniques, his nudism, the accusation of sedition, and his increasing poverty, while also re-centering Catherine Blake. The book culminates with Blake's color prints 'Pity,' 'Newton,' and 'Nebuchadnezzar,' and his final project 'The Book of Job.' Hoare lives in Southampton, England, and his previous works include 'The Sea Inside' (2013) and a biography of Noël Coward. He also curated an exhibition on Derek Jarman's love of nature and wrote about homophobia in World War I in 'Oscar Wilde's Last Stand.'