About this title: The last volumes in the series of William Blake's "Illuminated Books" reveal the writer and artist as a prophet driven by a sense of apocalyptic urgency. Blake conceived and executed "The Continental Prophecies" and "The Urizen Books" in the early 1790s, capturing the intellectual and spiritual turmoil of the American and French revolutions. Here, ...
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Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: The Wiliam Blake Trust, Princeton University Press
Date Published: 1995
ISBN-13:9780691044163ISBN:0691044163
Description: New in Fine jacket. Series: William Blake's Illuminated Books, Volume 6. 4to. 231 pp. Edited with Introductions and Notes by Davil Worrall, color and black-and-white illustrations, bibliography; text clean, un-marked. Chocolate-colored cloth, gilt spine, dust-jacket; binding square and tight, some minor soiling to jacket, extremities of jacket's rear panel a bit toned. Excellent! Your order receives my personal attention. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Date Published: 1995
ISBN-13:9780691044163ISBN:0691044163
Description: Near Fine oversized hardcover in a Near Fine dust jacket. Minor shelfwear to the edges of the dust jacket though no chips or tears. Remainder mark to the page ends, otherwise a clean and bright copy. Numerous color plates. 231 pp. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN-13:9780691001463ISBN:0691001464
Description: Good. 0691001464 Good condition. May have some markings & or shelfwear. All pages intact. Used items may not include extras such as infotrac, CD or other web access codes. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN-13:9780691044163ISBN:0691044163
Description: Very Good. 0691044163 hardcover in very good condition. Pages are clean, binding is tight. Cover has slight shelf wear. Appears gently read. Satisfaction Guaranteed. read more
Binding: Hardback
Publisher: PRINCETON UNIV PR
Date Published: 1995
ISBN-13:9780691044163ISBN:0691044163
Description: New. In Lambeth in the 1790's, against a background of war and revolution in the American colonies and in Europe, and at home the denial of civil liberties and emergent radicalism, William Blake composed three uncompromising books in illuminated printing... read more
Description: Good. 0691044163 Good condition. May have some markings & or shelfwear. All pages intact. Used items may not include extras such as infotrac, CD or other web access codes. read more
"Most readers who discover Blake encounter his short poems, the Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, which include well-known lyrics like "Tyger, tyger burning bright." And most of these readers never know that Blake illustrated his songs and printed all his illustrated books by hand. For those who go deeper into Blake, the next two poems to experience are "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" and "The Book of Urizen."
The Book of Urizen contains the core of Blake's mythology - it's his version of the creation story in Genesis. For him, the creation is an unending mortal conflict between the compulsive demiurge, stony Urizen, and the imaginative, fiery Los. The easy way to read the symbolism is that Urizen is Reason and/or "horizon" - that which sets limits; Los (Sol (ie. Sun), spelled backwards - which is how Blake inscribed the metal plates from which he printed his texts), is imagination, intellectual freedom. In Blake's myths, though, the relationships between his characters and the nature of their actions get so complex that they resist any easy allegorical reduction. The imagery is startling, a psychological drama on a cosmic scale. And the art is disturbing, elemental, unforgettable. The other two poems included in this volume, The Book of Ahania and The Book of Los, are a few pages each, draftier and barely-illustrated attempts by Blake to work out the origins of the Urizen/Los conflict.
There are typeset versions facing each page of text, since the original acid-etched plates are hard to read. There's a good deal of explanatory text here too - very hot to stress the 18th century political context for these poems. Funny how Worrall, writer of these notes, makes the reign of tyrant King George III sound a lot like the reign of our own George III, though the book came out back in 1995. And a lot of notes detail differences between the various hand-printed and hand-colored editions Blake made. Not sure any of it's really necessary for a reader who's not a literary critic. Plus it does detract from the sheer beauty of Blake's works, from the feeling of holding one of his books in your hands, which should be the goal of a good facsimile edition.
The physical book itself is a masterpiece of bookmaking. The Princeton University Press has spared no expense in making these color reproductions, which rival the gold-standard but very limited earlier Trianon Press editions. Now these editions are themselves becoming scarce, but still worth the price. It's heirloom quality, something to keep for a lifetime."
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