Product Description

The core of William Blake's vision, his greatness as one of the British Romantics, is most fully expressed in his Illuminated Books, masterworks of art and text intertwined and mutually enriching. Made possible by recent advances in printing and reproduction technology, the publication of new editions of Jerusalem and Songs of Innocence and of Experience in 1991 was a major publishing event. Now these two volumes are followed by The Early Illuminated Books and Milton, A Poem. The books in both volumes are reproduced from the best available copies of Blake's originals and in faithfulness and accuracy match the acclaimed standards set by Jerusalem and Songs. These two volumes are uniform in format and binding with the first two volumes.

The Early Illuminated Books comprises All Religions Are One and There Is No Natural Religion; Thel; Marriage of Heaven and Hell; and Visions of the Daughters of Albion. Milton, A Poem, second only to Jerusalem in extent and ambition, is accompanied by Laocoön, The Ghost of Abel, and On Homer's Poetry.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #565732 in Books
• Published on: 1998-09-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 286 pages

Review
[These volumes] reproduce, plate by plate, Blake's hand-lettered verses and colored illustrations. . . . These illuminated books, masterpieces of the book-maker's art, answer critical questions, especially about the poet's late, recondite allegories. They remind the poetry scholar that his Blake was first a visual artist, indebted to Raphael and Michelangelo, and second a writer beholden to Spenser and Milton. . . . -- Review

Review
[Blake's] illuminated books, parables of earthly life, were peopled with fanciful creatures drawn from an elaborate invented mythology. Blake published these works himself, but his ambition to reach a wide audience was never realized. Now the William Blake Trust, in association with Princeton University Press, has initiated a five-volume facsimile series. . . . The first two volumes . . . are now available. Produced with meticulous care, each has a brief introduction. Each volume also contains exquisite reproductions of the original plates, a new transcription of Blake's text and scholarly but accessible plate-by-plate commentaries.
(Andrea Barnet The New York Times Book Review )

The color printing is exceptional.
(Lewis Segal The Los Angeles Times Book Review )

In every way this initial release is a triumph. The exquisite images and a lucid text of each volume endow not just Blake's work, but the relationships between word and image, with a crystalline clarity.
(Eric Gibson The Washington Times )

[These volumes] reproduce, plate by plate, Blake's hand-lettered verses and colored illustrations. . . . These illuminated books, masterpieces of the book-maker's art, answer critical questions, especially about the poet's late, recondite allegories. They remind the poetry scholar that his Blake was first a visual artist, indebted to Raphael and Michelangelo, and second a writer beholden to Spenser and Milton. . . .
(New Criterion )

Customer Reviews

A must have!
I recommend that any fan of William Blake buy this volume and the other 5 in the series. The books are beautiful, large, and handsomely bound. Each book is reproduced in full color, using a six-color printing process rather than the standard four. The pages are heavy, opaque and have a gorgous lustre indicating very high quality paper. The text of each book accompanies the color reproductions in standard typeface with very competent commentary to boot.

A must have!
I recommend that any fan of William Blake buy this volume and the other 5 in the series. The books are beautiful, large, and handsomely bound. Each book is reproduced in full color, using a six-color printing process rather than the standard four. The pages are heavy, opaque and have a gorgous lustre indicating very high quality paper. The text of each book accompanies the color reproductions in standard typeface with very competent commentary to boot.

Five beautiful works from 1788 - 1793
This beautifully produced volume contains five of Blake's early works in relief etching (his illuminated books from 1788 to 1793 save "The Songs of Innocence" from 1789 - published in volume 2 in this series). They are the early tract like "All Religions Are One" and "There Is No Natural Religion", then the fable of "Thel", the magnificent "Marriage of Heaven and Hell" (one of Blake's most popular works), and the beautiful "Visions of the Daughters of Albion".

This volume really four books bound in one. The tracts are treated as one book, then each of the others individually. Each sub-volume has its own introduction and commentary and each plate is given its own page and most have the text on the left page with the plate on the right.

There are also alternative plates provided for additional study.

As with all the volumes in this series, the production values are high, as is the scholarship. A volume you can be proud to have on your shelf.