The Illuminated Books of William Blake, Volume 2 by William Blake

The Illuminated Books of William Blake, Volume 2 by William Blake

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. In 1949 the William Blake Trust was founded to bring these rare, in some cases unique, works to a wider general audience through the publication of superbly produced facsimiles of each book. By the late 1980's these facsimiles had themselves become rare books. The Trust accordingly resolved to initiate a collected edition that would publish accurate reproductions of all the Illuminated Books to be accompanied by notes and commentaries by leading Blake scholars. Songs of Innocence and of Experience, one of the best known of the books, is now reproduced in paperback for the first time from the King's College, Cambridge copy--sometimes known as "Blake's own copy." The poems have been edited with introduction, notes, commentaries, and bibliography.

Blake's polarities as poet and artist are.. directly revealed. The illustrative ingenuousness and sweetness of Songs belie the explosive lyricism that girds these poems. -- Leonard Baskin The Washington Times Part of the pleasure of this lovely volume results from Andrew Lincoln's intel-ligent introduction and commentary... But the greatest pleasure by far is the color reproduction itself... One of the most beautiful and finely finished copies we have. -- Irene Tayler Blake: An Illustrated Quarterly It is a very strong light indeed that comes from these quarto volumes. They 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... The greatest contribution of the Princeton facsimiles is that they have made Milton and Jerusalem accessible in the only form Blake ever wished to present them. -- Daniel Mark Epstein New Criterion

WILLIAM BLAKE was born in London in 1757. He was educated at home and then worked as an apprentice to the engraver James Basire before joining the Royal Academy in 1779. In 1782 he married Catherine Boucher, and a year later began his career as a poet when he published Poetical Sketches. This was followed by Songs of Innocence (1789) and Songs of Experience (1794), which he also designed and engraved. His other major literary works include The Book of Thel (1789), The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (c. 1793), Milton (1804-8), and Jerusalem (1804-20). He produced many paintings and engravings during his lifetime. Blake died in 1827.

ALFRED KAZIN was born in Brooklyn in 1915. His first book of criticism, On Native Grounds (1942), was a groundbreaking study of American literature that changed radically our way of looking at it, and established him overnight as a major figure. In a series of books of his own since then, and in many critically edited texts of classic American literary works, he established himself as our preeminent man of letters. He taught widely at Harvard, Smith, Amherst, Hunter College, the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and elsewhere. In 1996 he received from the Truman Capote Literary Trust its first Lifetime Achievement Award in Literary Criticism (in memory of Newton Arvin). He died in 1998.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780691069364
ISBN 10	0691069360
Title	The Illuminated Books of William Blake, Volume 2
Author	William Blake
Series	Blake
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	University of California Press
Year published	1991-10-27
Number of pages	212
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable