The co-op bookstore for avid readers
Book Cover for: The Illuminated Books of William Blake, Volume 2: Songs of Innocence and of Experience, William Blake

The Illuminated Books of William Blake, Volume 2: Songs of Innocence and of Experience

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.

Book Details

  • Publisher: Princeton University Press
  • Publish Date: Dec 4th, 1994
  • Pages: 212
  • Language: English
  • Edition: Revised - undefined
  • Dimensions: 11.62in - 8.34in - 0.69in - 1.73lb
  • EAN: 9780691037905
  • Categories: European - English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh

More books to explore

Book Cover for: Spenser's Images of Life, C. S. Lewis
Book Cover for: The Canterbury Tales: Seventeen Tales and the General Prologue: A Norton Critical Edition, Geoffrey Chaucer
Book Cover for: Nine Irish Plays for Voices, Eamon Grennan
Book Cover for: Rudyard Kipling: 100 Poems, Rudyard Kipling
Book Cover for: Selected Poems 1988-2013, Seamus Heaney
Book Cover for: Beowulf: A New Verse Translation, Seamus Heaney
Book Cover for: Under Milk Wood, Dylan Thomas
Book Cover for: The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer
Book Cover for: The Canterbury Tales: (Original-Spelling Edition), Geoffrey Chaucer
Book Cover for: The Complete Works of W. H. Auden: Poems, Volume II: 1940-1973, W. H. Auden
Book Cover for: The Man with Night Sweats: Poems, Thom Gunn
Book Cover for: All the Sonnets of Shakespeare, William Shakespeare
Book Cover for: Aeneid Book VI: A New Verse Translation: Bilingual Edition, Seamus Heaney
Book Cover for: Beowulf: A New Verse Translation, Seamus Heaney
Book Cover for: The Temple, George Herbert

About the Author

David Bindman is Durning-Lawrence Professor of the History of Art at University College, London. Andrew Lincoln is Lecturer in English at Queen Mary's and Westfield College, University of London.

More books by William Blake

Book Cover for: Songs of Innocence and Experience: Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul, 1789-1794, William Blake
Book Cover for: Romantic Poets, William Wordsworth
Book Cover for: William Blake: The Complete Illuminated Books, William Blake
Book Cover for: The Complete Poetry & Prose of William Blake, William Blake
Book Cover for: The Complete Poems, William Blake
Book Cover for: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (In Full Color), William Blake
Book Cover for: Poems, William Blake
Book Cover for: Songs of Innocence & Experience; plus The Marriage of Heaven & Hell. With 50 original colour illustrations. (Aziloth Books), William Blake
Book Cover for: The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake: With a New Foreword and Commentary by Harold Bloom, William Blake
Book Cover for: Songs of Innocence, William Blake
Book Cover for: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: A Facsimile in Full Color, William Blake
Book Cover for: William Blake: Selected Poems, William Blake
Book Cover for: Blake: Poems: Edited by Peter Washington, William Blake
Book Cover for: The Book of Urizen: Fully Illustrated Edition, William Blake
Book Cover for: Poems of William Blake, William Blake
Book Cover for: Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, William Blake

Praise for this book

"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