Husband of Christina Stead. William J. Blake, an American with German-Jewish heritage, met the Australian writer Christina Stead in England in the late 1920s. He lived with Stead in Paris and London from 1929 until 1935 when they travelled to the United States of America and then to Spain.
On the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, they returned to England. In July 1937 Blake and Stead returned to America living in Manhattan and in the country surrounding the city, except for a period from 1942-1943 when they worked in Hollywood as scriptwriters.
Blake and Stead moved back to Europe in 1946, first settling in Belgium and finally London in 1949. Blake and Stead were married in London in February 1952.
Margaret Harris in her biography of Christina Stead in Australian Dictionary of Biography Online writes that '... over time Blake provided Stead with emotional and practical support for her writing.'
Blake published non-fiction and seven novels from 1938 to 1959.
Source: Margaret Harris, 'Stead, Christina Ellen (1902–1983)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/stead-christina-ellen-15545/text26756, accessed 11 September 2013.
