William Blake: The Complete Illuminated Books
Category: Books,Literature & Fiction,Poetry
William Blake: The Complete Illuminated Books Details
From Publishers Weekly Editions of Blake's poetry which as an artist and printer he frequently engraved and published himself most often fail to reproduce his integral illustrations, or do so in poor enough quality as to negate the effort. This Complete edition from the Blake Trust, published last year in a Thames and Hudson hardback edition that is now out of print, should replace the b&w-only Dover edition (but not David V. Erdman's commentary therein, or his reading text The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake) for any reader. The 366 crisp color and 30 b&w reproductions here, culled from the scholarly Princeton University Press six-volume annotated set, are little short of a revelation, giving us Songs of Innocence, Songs of Experience, America, Milton, Jerusalem and the rest of the Blake canon in a form acceptably close, as Binder's introduction makes clear, to the way Blake wanted us to see them. Many of these works are currently hanging in a special Blake exhibition the largest ever at the Met in New York, for which the Abrams book serves as an informative and revealing catalogue. Hamlyn, a senior curator at London's Tate (where the exhibition originated), and the University of York's Phillips present prints, drawings, paintings, selections from Blake's own illuminated books and other relevant materials, such as snapshots from Blake's marvelous editions of Edward Young's Night Thoughts and Thomas Gray's Poems. Introductory essays from novelist and biographer Peter Ackroyd (Blake; T.S. Eliot) and Marilyn Butler, rector of Oxford's Exeter College, synopsize Blake's life and times, while extensive "label copy" situates each work as presented. While the visual overview is useful and some of the detail shots of larger works are compelling, poetry readers who have to choose will take the Complete. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc. Read more About the Author David Bindman is a noted William Blake scholar. Read more
Reviews
I agree with the other reviewers about how these historic/priceless/wonderful images are presented-some images way too small or no reason. Don't expect to be able to have an experience like I was expecting to have-to be able to read Blake's works the way he intended them-unless you have a magnifying glass on hand for the microscopic print. I cant imagine this isn't fixable. I'd buy another copy if the publishers would get off their asses and reverse engineer this thing!
