Complete Writings: With Variant Readings

Front Cover
Oxford University Press, 1966 - 944 pages
This text, edited with notes by Sir Geoffrey Keynes, was first published in 1957 to mark the bicentenary of Blake's birth. It is now reprinted in an improved form with corrections, and with additions derived from further readings of deleted words and passages introduced without change of line or page numbering. This text contains almost all Blake's substantive variants. A small amount of new material is added in a supplement, including some notes in Blake's hand (c. 1819) recently found in a sketchbook used by John Varley. -- From publisher's description.
 

Contents

Then she bore pale desire ante 1777
40
Poems written in a copy of Poetical Sketches circa 1787
63
Annotations to Swedenborgs Wisdom of Angels concerning
89
There is no Natural Religion circa 1788
97
Songs of Innocence 1789 III
111
The Book of Thel 1789
127
The French Revolution 1791
134
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell circa 179093
148
Annotations to Boyds translation of Dantes Inferno
411
Poems from the Pickering Manuscript circa 1803
423
Blakes Memorandum 1803
437
Annotations to Sir Joshua Reynoldss Discourses
445
Milton a Poem in 2 Books 180408
480
Epigrams Verses and Fragments from The NoteBook
536
Advertisement of Exhibition of Paintings 1809
560
Pilgrims 1809
586

A Song of Liberty
159
A fairy leapt upon my knee circa 1793
188
America a Prophecy 1793
195
probably intended for America circa 1793
206
Subjects for The History of England a small book
208
A Divine Image circa 1794
221
Europe a Prophecy 1794
237
The Song of Los 1795
245
The Book of Los 1795
255
fair copy 1796
261
Annotations to Watsons Apology for The Bible 1798
383
Annotations to Bacons Essays circa 1798
396
Joseph of Arimathea circa 1810
604
Descriptions of the illustrations to Miltons LAllegro
617
The Everlasting Gospel circa 1818
748
The Gates of Paradise circa 1818
760
Notes on Spurzheims Observations on Insanity circa 1819
772
The Laocoon circa 1820
778
Annotations to The Excursion by Wordsworth 1826
784
The Letters 17911827
859
888888
923
Annotations to Swedenborgs Heaven and Hell circa 1790
929
Letter to Mrs Aders 29 December 1826
936
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About the author (1966)

William Blake's poems, prophecies, and engravings represent his strong vision and voice for rebellion against orthodoxy and all forms of repression. Born in London in November 1757; his father, a hosier of limited means, could do little for the boy's education. However, when the young Blake's talent for design became apparent, his wise father sent him to drawing school at the age of 10. In 1771 Blake was apprenticed to an engraver. Blake went on to develop his own technique, a method he claimed that came to him in a vision of his deceased younger brother. In this, as in so many other areas of his life, Blake was an iconoclast; his blend of printing and engraving gave his works a unique and striking illumination. Blake joined with other young men in support of the Revolutions in France and America. He also lived his own revolt against established rules of conduct, even in his own home. One of his first acts after marrying his lifetime companion, Catherine Boucher, was to teach her to read and write, rare for a woman at that time. Blake's writings were increasingly styled after the Hebrew prophets. His engravings and poetry give form and substance to the conflicts and passions of the elemental human heart, made real as actual characters in his later work. Although he was ignored by the British literary community through most of his life, interest and study of his work has never waned. Blake's creativity and original thinking mark him as one of the earliest Romantic poets, best known for his Songs of Innocence (1789) and Songs of Experience (1794) and The Tiger. Blake died in London in 1827.

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