Michael Justin Davis' 1977 biography of William Blake serves as a good, basic introduction to Blake's life and poetry, with brief explications of the major poems interspersed throughout the narrative of Blake's life. Being only 181 pages, though, I felt he needed more discussion of many important topics, sometimes leaving his reader with bare assertions rather than developed argument, and it's sometimes unclear where he was getting his information from. Overall, it's a readable, short, professional biography of Blake, but lacks the personality of Gilchrist's biography or the depth of Bentley's.