Synopses & Reviews
In 1949 the William Blake Trust was founded to bring Blake's rare Illuminated Books to a wider general audience through the publication of superbly produced facsimiles. Recent advances in printing and reproduction technology now enable the Trust to fulfill its mandate. The originals have been newly and meticulously photographed and the best modern technology has been applied to ensure that the plates are reproduced as faithfully as possible.
Review
"One of the essential publishing projects of the decade.... Blake interpretation is its own universe of scholarship, but someone who reads only the Princeton series of Blake books will come away very well informed."
--The San Francisco Chronicle
Review
"Blake's highly personal, cottage-industry methods of book-production have had to wait two centuries for printing and photographic technology ... to bring his books within reach of ordinary readers.... And, physically, they are a delight. Here at last, one feels, is an edition of Blake as he should be seen. Blake ... is heading for the new millennium in exuberantly good form."
--The Times Literary Supplement
Review
"Blake published these works himself, but his ambition to reach a wide audience was never realized.... Produced with meticulous care, each has a brief introduction. Each volume also contains exquisite reproductions of the original plates, a new transcription of Blake's text and scholarly but accessible plate-by-plate commentaries."
--The New York Times Book Review
Review
"Sumptuous facsimiles.... gloriously colored pages. It [isn't] the real thing, but [it's] as near as most of us will ever come: like peeping into a furnace of light through a crack in the door."
--The London Review of Books
Review
"The greatest pleasure by far is the color reproduction itself.... One of the most beautiful and finely finished copies we have."
--Blake Illustrated Quarterly
Review
"Absolutely gorgeous and a bargain, with voluptuously generous commentary."
--Studies in English Literature