William Blake

Description

This volume in the 21st Century Oxford Authors series offers students an authoritative, comprehensive selection of the work of William Blake (1757-1827). The edition features a selection of Blake's poetry, illuminated poetry, and prose, and includes an Introduction, Chronology, and full commentary notes.

• Introduces students to the life and work of William Blake, the prolific Romantic poet and artist
• Features 120 black and white illustrations
• Includes a selection of Blake's letters, manuscripts, notebook, advertising pamphlets, marginalia, and other lesser-known works
• Blake's work is presented in chronological order, allowing students to study his development and growth
• Includes a separate Chronology at the opening of the volume, which provides details of Blake's life, and the composition and publication of his works
• The poems and writings are presented free of annotation on the page, allowing students to encounter the original texts afresh
• Explanatory notes and commentary are located at the end of the book, providing students with a wealth of additional material and information that will enhance the understanding and enjoyment of these works
• An essential teaching resource, representing Blake's work in all its variety

About the Author(s)

Edited by Peter Otto, Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor, University of Melbourne

Peter Otto is Professor of Literature at the University of Melbourne and a member of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. He teaches and researches in the literatures and cultures of modernity, from Romanticism to the new media of today. His recent publications include Entertaining the Supernatural: Animal Magnetism, Spiritualism, Secular Magic and Psychical Science, an online collection of primary texts (2007); Multiplying Worlds: Romanticism, Modernity, and the Emergence of Virtual Reality (OUP 2011); and 'Innovations in Encompassing Large Scenes', an online exhibition housed in the Romantic Circles Gallery of Visual Culture (2013). He has published two books on William Blake, both with Oxford University Press, numerous articles on Blake, Romanticism, and Gothic Fictions, and is currently completing a monograph on 'William Blake and the History of Imagination: Poetry, Prophecy, and Secularization'.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chronology
From Poetical Sketches (1783)
[An Island in the Moon] (c.1785)
From Annotations to Lavater's Aphorisms on Man (1788)
All Religions Are One (1788)
There Is No Natural Religion (1788)
From Annotations to Swedenborg's Heaven and Hell (1784; notes c.1789)
Songs of Innocence (1789)
The Book of Thel (1789)
From Annotations to Swedenborg's Divine Love and Divine Wisdom (1788; notes c.1790)
From Annotations to Swedenborg's Divine Providence (1790; notes c.1790)
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790)
From The Notebook (c.1791-93)
Visions of the Daughters of Albion (1793)
America a Prophecy (1793)
To the Public [Prospectus] (1793)
From The Notebook (c.1793)
For Children: The Gates of Paradise (1793)
Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1794)
Europe a Prophecy (1794)
The First Book of Urizen (1794)
The Song of Los (1795)
The Book of Ahania (1795)
The Book of Los (1795)
From Vala or The Four Zoas (1797-c.1807)
From The Notebook (c.1797-99)
From Annotations to Watson's An Apology for the Bible (1797; notes 1798)
From Annotations to Bacon's Essays (1798; notes c.1798)
From Annotations to The Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds (1798; notes c.1798-1809)
Letters [1799-1800]
From Annotations to Boyd's Translation of the Inferno (1785; notes c.1800)
Letters [1802-3]
Memorandum in Refutation of the . . . Complaint of John Scolfield (August 1803]
Letters [1803-4]
From The Notebook (c.1803-04)
Milton a Poem (c.1804-1811)
[The Pickering Manuscript] (c.1805-07)
From The Notebook (c.1807-09)
Blake's Exhibition (1809)
From Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion (1804-c.1820)
From [A Vision of the Last Judgment] (1810)
From [A Public Address to the Chalcographic Society] (c.1810)
Europe, Title page (late revisions, c.1815-20)
From Annotations to Spurzheim's Observations (1817; notes c.1818)
Letters [1818]
The Everlasting Gospel (c.1818)
For the Sexes: The Gates of Paradise (1820)
Annotations to Berkeley's Siris (1744; notes c.1820)
From Annotations to Wordsworth's Preface to The Excursion (1814; notes 1826)
From Annotations to Wordsworth's Poems (1815; notes 1826)
From Annotations to Thornton's The Lord's Prayer (1827)
Letter [1827]
On Homers Poetry and On Virgil (c.1820)
The Ghost of Abel (1822)
[Jehovah]& his two Sons Satan & Adam [The Laocoön] (c.1826-27)
List of Abbreviations
Notes
Index of Titles and First Lines

Reviews

"The latest edition of Blakes selected works rich with both textual and explanatory annotations and 120 black-and-white images." - Wayne C. Ripley, An Illustrated Quarterly

"Peter Otto's William Blake (Oxford, 2018) presents the latest edition of Blake's selected works. Part of the 21st-Centu-ry Oxford Authors series, the book runs over 800 pages, and is rich with both textual and explanatory annotations and 120 black-and-white images. The works are arranged chronologically rather than generically, even to the point of offering Songs of Innocence alone and again with Songs of Experience." - Wayne C. Ripley, Blake/An Illustrated Quarterly