Wash Drawing for Original Stories

What it is

This is a wash drawing by the artist and poet William Blake, created in 1791 to illustrate Mary Wollstonecraft's children's book Original Stories from Real Life. It shows a standing woman with outstretched arms, wearing a wide-brimmed hat, flanked by two young girls.

Why it matters

Wollstonecraft wrote Original Stories to teach moral lessons to children, and having it illustrated by Blake, a major artist of the period, shows how seriously her educational writing was taken. The image reflects ideas about childhood, guidance and virtue that were central to her teaching.

Look closer

• What does the woman's pose suggest about her relationship to the two girls?
• Why might Blake have chosen a gentle, protective scene rather than a dramatic one?
• What does this drawing not tell us about the actual content of Wollstonecraft's stories?