William Hogarth was born in London, England on November 10, 1697 in a house near a meat market. He came out of north-country, yoeman-farmer stock, but his father had been an unsuccessful schoolmaster, a writer of Latin grammars and compiler of a never-published dictionary, supporting his family by working for printers but clearly a failure.

All his life, Hogarth was criticized for not being able to spell, but his schoolmaster father did little to educate him. William did have a fondness for drawing and was found making drawings at every opportunity. The father went bankrupt and was in debtors' prison for five years. Hogarth's mother hawked patent medicines and the family was confined to the filthy streets outside the jail walls. Mor...