Charles Gardner (born 1874) is an author about whose life very little is publicly known; his nationality, education, and career are not clearly documented. What can be confirmed is that he wrote William Blake, the Man, a biographical work centered on the life of the English poet and artist William Blake. In subject matter, Gardner attends to Blake as a person rather than offering an analysis of his artistic or poetic technique alone, an approach that generally addresses general readers and seeks to present character and circumstances through factual narrative. Since only this one work is held in the collection, it is difficult to judge Gardner's overall style or scholarly orientation, or to assess the book's later standing in Blake studies. Overall, Gardner contributed to the shaping of Blake's image through biography, and his work may serve as a reference text for early accounts of Blake's life.
