The Complete Illuminated Books

by William Blake, David Bindman (Introduction)

"If you know Blake's poems you're getting only half―or rather none of―the picture."―The New York Times

In his Illuminated Books, William Blake combined text and imagery on a single page in a way that had not been done since the Middle Ages. For Blake, religion and politics, intellect and emotion, mind and body were both unified and in conflict with each other: his work is expressive of his personal mythology, and his methods of conveying it were integral to its meaning. There is no comparison with reading books such as Jerusalem, America, and Songs of Innocence and of Experience in Blake's own medium, infused with his sublime and exhilarating colors. Tiny figures and forms dance among the lines of the text, flames appear to burn up the page, and dense passages of Biblical-sounding text are brought to a jarring halt by startling images of death, destruction, and liberation. Blake's hope that his books would obtain wide circulation was unfulfilled: some exist only in unique copies and none was printed in more than very small numbers. Now, for the first time, the plates from the William Blake Trust's Collected Edition have been brought together in a single volume, with transcripts of the texts and an introduction by the noted scholar David Bindman.

Includes: Jerusalem; Songs of Innocence and of Experience; All Religions are One; There is No Natural Religion; The Book of Thel; The Marriage of Heaven and Hell; Visions of the Daughters of Albion; America a Prophecy; Europe a Prophecy; The Song of Los Milton a Poem; The Ghost of Abel; On Homers Poetry [and] On Virgil; Laocoon; The First Book of Urizen; The Book of Ahania; The Book of Los. 400 color illustrations

Genres: Poetry, Art, Classics, Fiction, Literature, Philosophy, Religion

480 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1822

About the author

William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake's work is today considered seminal and significant in the history of both poetry and the visual arts.

Blake's prophetic poetry has been said to form "what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in the language". His visual artistry has led one modern critic to proclaim him "far and away the greatest artist Britain has ever produced." Although he only once travelled any further than a day's walk outside London over the course of his life, his creative vision engendered a diverse and symbolically rich corpus, which embraced 'imagination' as "the body of God", or "Human existence itself".

Once considered mad for his idiosyncratic views, Blake is highly regarded today for his expressiveness and creativity, and the philosophical and mystical currents that underlie his work. His work has been characterized as part of the Romantic movement, or even "Pre-Romantic", for its largely having appeared in the 18th century. Reverent of the Bible but hostile to the established Church, Blake was influenced by the ideals and ambitions of the French and American revolutions, as well as by such thinkers as Emanuel Swedenborg.

Despite these known influences, the originality and singularity of Blake's work make it difficult to classify. One 19th century scholar characterised Blake as a "glorious luminary", "a man not forestalled by predecessors, nor to be classed with contemporaries, nor to be replaced by known or readily surmisable successors."

Reviews

[Fergus, Weaver of Autistic Webs · Rating 4 out of 5]

SO I LAUGH, I DANCE AND SING
TILL SOME BLIND HAND MAY BRUSH MY WING -

THEN AM I A HAPPY FLY
IF I LIVE - OR IF I DIE.
William Blake.

DESPERATE TIMES CALL FOR DESPERATE MEASURES.
George W. Bush

When the times we live in get desperate, WE get desperate: there, I’ve said it:

We - and our psychological centres which we call Egos - are getting desperate. ESPECIALLY in these aggravating times. And I mean everyone.

So what do we do? George Bush declared war. But Aspies like me and William Blake just RANTED. And ego-pride always goes before a fall. Why? Because our chosen medium, lapidary works of fantasy, simply had no basis in common sense.

We more experienced medically-conditioned souls have learned to breathe deeply - exhale and inhale, slowly - and go with the fall from Grace that necessarily follows. We just retreat to our Zero Point.

The still point at the centre of the world.

But William Blake, who had the engorged ego all of us have (and I mean me) whose fall from grace has a bipolar root, just made egoistical excuses: for in his fall, he thought he was a Lucifer - the Gnostic's REAL Christ.

Yikes. I know. Unmedicated, I was awful too…

Then again, John Lennon was awful as well - to my parents. But, guess what? 50 years after we all first listened to the album, Imagine is the ANTHEM of world gnosticism . The new Gnosticism is, paradoxically, agnostic: ethical relativism.

But it's my anthem as well, or I so once fondly thought. So what? But my illness has since then shown me the awful apocalyptic vision of Heaven and Hell, the infernally ungratified lusts of a lonely satyriacal world. Just as Blake said in this book, in the Marriage of Heaven and Hell. I know, "anathemata sit"...

But condemning gnosticism is also a convenient tool to use in justifying our sins behind the world's back. My besetting sin being my penchant for the happy/sad Asperger's world.

Is Christ too far away? Too easy, says Blake the gnostic: BEND the Rules of Christianity. Been there, done that. But I wouldn't utter those words now. No, mourning has engulfed me.

But, so it goes with these beautifully personally hand-painted Illuminated Books.

They're all gloriously, manically fractured fables. Without common sense, from a fellow quondam manic.

***

But you know what? Blake's devilish Lucifer Complex now rules the world. And it is proof of our slick and ugly Inner Sickness. Have you ever read the exceedingly zany and incredibly trenchant novel The Man Who Was Thursday?

Take the Luciferian character Sunday in that book. His sickness engorges itself on its own self-worship in the concluding passages' absolutely diabolical rant - and so grows to eclipse the vast expanse of starry space with its monstrous evil.

And that is the meaning of Apocalypse, according to G.K. Chesterton.

Apocalypse is what you get when the Devil finally pops up in the Lord's confessional, not to confess - but to blatantly Exult in - his sins.

The devil feeds upon us all, Chesterton is saying, and so must grow to monstrous proportions like a huge Boil - until, on the Last Day his bubble is finally lanced.

***

So yes, goodness wins in the end. But at what cost! In the midst of apocalyptic struggle, however, we must all struggle to maintain a rational, common sense grip on what's happening to us.

Maybe happy/sad is best after all. You can understand the groping lemmings but you mourn for them.

We must not allow ourselves to be carried downstream to destruction along with the rapid current of a thousand rhetorical rants. We must keep our heads.

We just don't see, as my mother taught me to see, that talk is cheap. And the talk that comes from a Lucifer Complex is the cheapest.

Folks, just remember that Lucifer always loses...

In the End.

And so, just like a Man Called Thursday - in the twinkling of an eye - "we all shall be changed…”

And know ourselves for the first time.

And this time it's the straight goods.

[Phillip · Rating 5 out of 5]

I began seeking out the illuminated books of William Blake almost as soon as I was introduced to his poetry around 1983 or 1984. I like the illustrations almost as much as I like the poetry.

Blake had a rich poetic palette to work with. He used dialectical dualism in the structure of "The Songs of Innocence and Experience" and in "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell." That alone delivered an interesting set of ideas to think about. He had visions that were important to his work and added depth to his vision.

He also had his own mythology that developed throughout his writing career that seemed to be similar in purpose to the desire of Tolkien to create a mythology for England. Blake's mythology for England is quite different from Tolkien's, for one thing Blake is less subtle about religion. Also, today Blake would have been a hard core socialist or communist. He condemns industrialism and speaks for the poor and weak.

Blake was a printer by trade. He invented a process in which three colors could be printed onto the page mechanically. For his illuminated books he would then water color the rest of what needed to be added by hand.

What do I like about William Blake? He was a visionary. It doesn't matter to me if I believe anything that he expresses. I admire a person who has seen something and developed it into a coherent body of art.

There are icons in his illuminated books that are so simple that an untrained person could do something similar and then on the same page or in a Bible illustration he would create something that requires the craft of a great artist. It always struck me as odd that both would be included. I also wonder what the purpose of that weird blend of simple and sophisticated was intended to do.

His illuminated books have what appears to be hand-written text interrupted or punctuated with the small icons and then decorated with illustrations reminds me of flyers I saw during the 1990s left around the University. The person who made the photocopied flyers wrote pages of diatribe in perfectly square and neat hand-writing on blank paper. The diatribes warned against the actions of the "RoboCop" who was acting on behalf of large corporations to keep the populous under control. The writer claimed antennas where sending mind-control messages into the population. There was also something about a berm that used to be north of town. All of this fit our town into a larger world of conspiracy. Small icons worked into the text of the diatribe, small diagrams of antennas and airplanes, and sometimes the logos of the offending corporations, what ever was being described in the text. Each diatribe would end with a list of contact numbers where a person could report information if they saw the RoboCop in our area. The one that always struck me was a phone number to the Oklahoma City stockyards. This part of the list claimed they had a publication providing information and gave a citation #.

When this person was active I ran across a couple of these diatribes. They were fascinating. When the police asked for them I turned them in without making copies. A policeman later told me that they identified the author, interviewed her extensively and determined that she was harmless.

I think of this incident every time I look at the illuminated work of William Blake.

[Peter Tillman · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was surprised at how little I liked this book, since I generally like Blake's art. Perhaps because of its religious themes? Anyway, I browsed through most of this VERY LARGE book, and finally gave up, since I couldn't find any art I really wanted to look at. Note that a fair bit of most plates is almost illegible, hand-written text. Very little like the attractive cover art, sigh. Not for me!

[Bria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Will I ever learn to bow to the great weight of History and Literature, to recognize my agonizing lack of context and knowledge, and grant myself permission to have something distilled for me rather than read it myself? I had thought William Blake was a poet who quite ingeniously crafted his own illustrated pamphlets; I was not prepared for the profound extent of his universe and his madness, and have subsequently been driven to keep searching for some great scholar to please, please spell out for me a line-by-line (well, not quite) interpretation of What. This. Is. About. I may have passed my eyes over every page of this extensive volume, but I imagine my perusal of Blake must continue on into the Future, until someone will tell me what exactly he thinks a Polypus is, or what makes a thing or person be described as Vegetating, or how it came to be that Couches feature so prominently in his otherwise quite natural works. I have only begun to investigate, but if someone could direct me to a glossary, or a character map, or an in-depth dictionary of allusion, or even a summary of what is HAPPENING in these colossal works of exquisite insanity, because the explanations on Wikipedia are sparse to nonexistent, and the summaries only further serve to prove to me that What The Hell. In a way he makes me hate modern society, if only because of my spurious notion that were he alive today he would just be the brooding heartthrob frontman of some unlistenable band with 13-minute-long songs suffused with their own convoluted mythology. And I know fans of such bands are bound to castigate me for saying so, but I would find him to be insufferable although it’s hard to imagine that he wasn’t insufferable in his own day. But you have to be an insufferable person to be so wrapped up in your own theology to create such epic rambling Abysses piled from their Fathomless bottoms with words drawn from a limited but scathingly dramatic pool, as if Blake had the idea of creating his own universe and mythology but since it wasn’t yet a common practice for a single man to do so, was still figuring out how to do it.

[Melissa Massello · Rating 5 out of 5]

O Rose, thou art sick!
The invisible worm
That flies in the night,
In the howling storm,

Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.

One of my favorite poems in the world. What would life be without the Romantics? I shudder to think.

[Mary Overton]

From the Foreword: "The present volume is the latest product of The William Blake Trust's commitment to the publication of Blake's Illuminated books.... While ... fulfilling its responsibility to scholars, the Trust has been keenly aware that the pages of the Illuminated books offer delights for the eye and excitement to the imagination that are independent of full understanding of textual and visual significances. To make such satisfactions open to the widest possible public the Trust has re-assembled all the plates included in the six volumes of the Collected Editions into the present single volume; now, for the first time ever, all the Illuminated books are available in colour in concise and convenient form." (6)

From David Bindman's Introduction: "Blake's distinctive achievement in the Illuminated books derives ultimately from his ability to create a unity out of the potentially fragmentary aspects of his life, by refusing to be confined within the professional compartments of printmaking, painting and poetry. Life, work and art were to be indivisible, united by the idea that all art was a form of prayer. Blake's passionate sincerity and spiritual ambition were always at war with material circumstances, but he was able to bring an almost superhuman energy and technical ingenuity to his desire to give concrete expression to his visions. At the same time the urgency of prophecy is frequently leavened by allusions to the mundane life of struggle as a jobbing engraver with ambitions above his station." (8)

[Jacques Coulardeau · Rating 5 out of 5]

LUMINOUS DARKNESS IN THIS SOMBER NIGHT

The English Language and English Literature have two visionary geniuses, William Shakespeare and William Blake. They are equal because different and they are both great because they see beyond words and beyond the surface of things, though with different means at times. And American English Literature has a third one, Walt Whitman. Three pillars of English visionary mythology that make any other mythology, Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Hindu or Buddhist very small indeed. They can only compare with Maya mythology that enters a completely different though just as intense universe of fantastic and at times horrific, cosmic power and life.



William Blake is a poetic monument created by human surrealist nature. He refers to himself and his own roots exclusively though he has nourished his imagination with the visions of others and, first of all, of all Apocalypses ever written or simply imagined by anyone since the mutating birth of Homo Sapiens. Blake wants to assume that human history, but he tries to go beyond all categories our Indo-European languages impose onto our thinking. For him time is timeless and becomes pure duration, space is spaceless and becomes a pure and permanent reversal of the inside outside and of the outside inside. He vertically aligns three cardinal points North, South, and East, and makes West turn around this North-South-East axis delimiting a spindle that becomes a vision of our life, soul, mind, and flesh. We are that rotating spindle that collapses inwards permanently and swells outwards again incessantly and infinitely. And even if we really are that spindle in every one of ourselves, the whole universe is a spindle of all the human spindles on its own and all by itself. The whole universe is flesh, the whole universe is divine, the whole universe is satanic, the whole universe is the promise of salvation in that very Brownian chaos of our dreaming imagination that encompasses all these movements and tries to rebuild some epiphanic salvation in that seemingly incoherent apocalypse. And that salvation is visual, a vision in color, shapes, and forms, movements and drifts and the use of illuminations and graphic representations are just the shapings of this inner mentally graphic meaning.

These various dimensions are intertwined in, for example, “Jerusalem, The Emanation of the Giant Albion”: the dramatic line (single or multi-linear, if we follow the debate dominated by David Whitmarsh), the style and the music, the imagery and the menagerie, the religious inspiration and the iconoclastic anti-references, and of course the illustrations. Blake gives the lie to George Lakoff when this latter says, “Metaphor is a natural phenomenon since "conceptual metaphor is part of human thought, and linguistic metaphor is part of human language" (LAKOFF, G. & JOHNSON, M. Metaphors We Live By. The University of Chicago Press, 2003 [1980], p.247) For Blake it is all a mental graphic multidimensional semiotic hybridization, and thus has nothing to do with the natural of natural phenomena. In fact, we can wonder if Lakoff does not take “natural” with the meaning of “human-produced” because “human thought and… human language” have been devised by Homo Sapiens in his long emergence from his Hominin ancestors. Nothing natural there but only phylogenic development of the mind and language that developed pre-Sapiens Hominins into Sapiens Hominins.

To capture this art you must concentrate on some sections, even short excerpts, probably one or two plates to be able to see in full detail how this poetry tries to recreate the Hebraic Semitic capture of the world and conceptualization of life, I mean the Semitic vision of the world with a language that only starts from consonantal roots and then conceptualizes a whole network of notions derived from these roots by the use of vocalic variations, the roots keeping there meaning no matter how far from them the discursive words are built with such vocalic variations and compositions of such roots and derived discursive words. But Blake works in a language that is two phylogenic articulations further down our phylogenic evolution, a synthetic-analytical language. Blake is a typical English poet who knows those ancient and ancestral languages enough to try to transport their conceptualizing power into English itself. His prophetic texts are the visual and graphic results of that attempt.

But to really understand Blake you also need to take into account the simple, short poems like the famous Tyger poem:

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

And these simple poems have been a phenomenal inspiration to many artists in England but also in the world. I will only take one example, Benjamin Britten and his opera The Little Sweep. It starts from two poems by William Blake, the Chimney Sweeper, one in the Songs of Innocence (1789) and the other in the Songs of Experience (1794). The two poems have contradictory meanings on the basis of the same description of a hateful and bleak occupation for boys under ten.

The first poem’s conclusion is:

“Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy and warm;
So if all do their duty they need not fear harm.”

Good boy indeed who knows his duty. The second poem’s conclusion is

"And because I am happy and dance and sing,
They think they have done me no injury,
And are gone to praise God and his priest and king,
Who make up a heaven of our misery."

This chimney sweeper shows some kind of childish happiness that hides well the real bleak misery inside.

If we keep in mind this contradictory message from the most empathetic English poet ever, we can then get into the opera whose libretto was written by Eric Crozier. In that opera, Benjamin Britten plays on the strong image of Blake’s first poem of these boys being locked up in black coffins of soot and their being freed by an angel.

“That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack,
Were all of them locked up in coffins of black.
And by came an angel who had a bright key,
And he opened the coffins and set them all free;
Then down a green plain leaping, laughing, they run,
And wash in a river, and shine in the sun.
Then naked and white, all their bags left behind,
They rise upon clouds and sport in the wind.”

Benjamin Britten, or Eric Crozier, uses the image of the coffins many times: stuck in the chimney, then hidden in the toy cupboard, spending the night there, and finally being moved out of the house and onto his liberation in a traveling chest. Every time the boy is liberated in a way or another, the last time is a promise though, by the children of the house who plot that whole procedure, hence playing the role of the angel and led into that by three girls along with three boys, a perfect David’s star, from two families, the Brooks (two girls and one boy) and the Cromes (two boys and one girl), one triangle point up representing the light of divine truth poured down into the human cup and one triangle point down representing the human cup receiving the divine light.

So, enjoy Blake's poetry and try to enjoy it more than just read it. Contemplate, empathize and visualize in your mind’s eye that poignant reality, that cruel suffering in Blake’s vision and you might be engulfed in a power that has been running from 300,000 years ago when Homo Sapiens emerged from Homo Erectus or Homo Ergaster in Black Africa to today when the whole humanity and the planet itself are on the verge of going through the sixth mass extinction of life, and this time due to over-population, over-exploitation of natural resources and extreme over-pollution.

Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU

[Vicky Hunt · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Work of Blake (as in, 'It's a Picasso.')

The Complete Illuminated Books of William Blake is a Kindle collection that offers a comprehensive glimpse into Blake's illuminated works; showcasing his talent as a poet, painter, and printmaker. The intricate illustrations were meticulously hand-colored by Blake himself. Blake had a unique artistic vision with an ability to seamlessly blend poetry and images. But, I use the word 'unique' carefully. Blake's work is largely a blending of the Bible, with his egocentric world view. Being a rebel against all organized forms of religion and politics (he was one of his own Orcs, it seems,) he styled himself a prophet of religion and politics. So he writes his 'visions' by reusing the words of the Biblical prophets.

Is it creative? Is it beautiful? The answer to both of these questions about Blake's poetry is yes. His lines often lapse into moments of ecstasy, with words rolling across the tongue in such delight. He writes of angels of God and Satan as if he were the angel of light and beauty in the garden quoting from Scripture with a twist. Though it is admittedly pleasing to read in parts, it is a twisting of scripture to fit his own world views.

The biggest embarrassment is his placing of England into the position of Jerusalem in the canon of Scripture... an error that admittedly many American Christians in the United States commit. We each have our own place in the world. Blake simply reorders the map to place all the world under England. At times, his work comes across as parody. But, I think it was his own special brand of madness. His reference to the print shop in hell, for example, could be seen as satire, or even lampoon.

The book presents high-quality reproductions that capture the intricacy and vibrancy of Blake's illuminated works, if not the tactile feel. The collection in this format provides valuable insights into the symbolism and themes that permeate Blake's art and mythology, exploring themes of spirituality/ mysticism, politics, and the human condition.

The images display especially well on the new Kindle Scribe, which provides better resolution for viewing full screen images. I was about halfway through when I got my Scribe (for my birthday) and enjoyed going back to have another look at all the images. I suggest that if you are looking into the Scribe, you jump on the bundle sales, and use the trade-in feature to end up at about half price. It would look great on a tablet too, or pc app. I will leave you to your own devices.

The Complete Illuminated Books is a visual feast and also a literary work of genius. Blake's poetry is as thought-provoking as his art, and this collection allows readers to access his works in an affordable manner via Kindle. Whether one is a longtime Blake enthusiast or a newcomer to his work, this anthology is an excellent resource, as these poems often contain profound social and political critiques, addressing issues such as child labor, poverty, and societal oppression.

[Chris Brimmer · Rating 5 out of 5]

To really understand Blake you have to read it with the original illuminations. Get your hands on the largest format you can find. I visited the NYC Library almost everyday for almost a year as they turned one page a day of an original. Great poetry, great art.

[ZaRi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ah Sun-flower! weary of time,
Who countest the steps of the Sun:
Seeking after that sweet golden clime
Where the travellers journey is done.

Where the Youth pined away with desire,
And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow:
Arise from their graves and aspire,
Where my Sun-flower wishes to go.

[Garth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Only Shakespeare ranked higher than Blake as the seminal British Artist. Ignored during his life and celebrated as an luminary afterward, William Blake was one of the foremost influences of people like Dwight D. Eisenhower who would later call the "military-industrial complex." what Blake coined a much more colorful term―" the Satanic Mills"―by which I take him to mean the three-headed hydra of State, Church and Industry. As a result, Blake became a major influence on reform-minded poets like Walt Whitman, William Butler Yeats, Alan Ginsberg, E. E. Cummings and Pablo Neruda. Later, Blake would also influence rebellious singer-songwriters like Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Jim Morrison, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, and Bono. There were many passages that I heard the voice of Morrison in my head while reading this almost 1000 page book.
My opinion? Blake was as brilliant as Marx but as tiresome and long-winded as Milton...

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

William Blake just cracked open my brain and poured in the entire universe.

I looked through this book mostly for the artwork, since a lot of the plates are somewhat difficult to read. Nonetheless, what an experience. Blake's engravings got much more complex as he went along, and the coloring... it's just beyond words. It's the entire human experience expressed in mythological art. Now I'm really, really glad that I began dipping my toes into Joseph Campbell before re-approaching Blake. Having some concept of a universal(?) mythology helps.

(from Jerusalem, plate 77, "To the Christians")

I stood among my valleys of the south
And saw a flame of fire, even as a Wheel
Of fire surrounding all the heavens: it went
From west to east against the current of
Creation, and devourd all things in its loud
Fury & thundering course round heaven & earth
By it the Sun was rolld into an orb:
By it the Moon faded into a globe.
Travelling thro the night: for from its dire
And restless fury, Man himself shrunk up
Into a little root a fathom long.
And I asked a Watcher & a Holy-One
Its Name? he answerd. It is the Wheel of Religion
I wept & said. Is this the law of Jesus
This terrible devouring sword turning every way
He answerd; Jesus died because he strove
Against the current of this Wheel: its Name
Is Caiaphas, the dark Preacher of Death
Of sin, of sorrow, & of punishment;
Opposing Nature! It is Natural Religion
But Jesus is the bright Preacher of Life
Creating Nature from this fiery Law,
By self-denial & forgiveness of Sin:
Go therefore, cast out devils in Christs name
Heal thou the sick of spiritual disease
Pity the evil. for thou art not sent
To smite with terror & with punishments
Those that are sick. like to the Pharisees
Crucifying & encompasing sea & land
For proselytes to tyranny & wrath.
But to the Publicans & Harlots go!
Teach them True Happiness. but let no curse
Go forth out of thy mouth to blight their peace
For Hell is opend to Heaven; thine eyes beheld
The dungeons burst & the Prisoners set free.

Wow.

[Lucy Wordley · Rating 3 out of 5]

My only real interaction with William Blake's works before I read this was from studying Songs of Innocence and Experience at sixth-form; I enjoyed them thoroughly at the time and still have several verses memorised. After working my way through the rest of his illuminated books via this collection those two remain my favourites of his without a doubt. There are still layers to uncover and symbolism to decipher in them but these early works are certainly a lot more accessible. The problem with reading Blake's later works, also known as the 'prophetic books', is that they are so dense, so complex and at times seemingly nonsensical. I am not ashamed to say that I genuinely just didn't understand a lot of what Blake was trying to get at, particularly in his lengthiest epic, Jerusalem. It is clear that his works are ram-packed full of visionary ideas and concepts almost impenetrable to the reader without deeper study. One day I may dedicate some time to rereading and trying to decipher these works, I have already scoped out a couple of biographers and critics who have written books on Blake that will help me with this task.

The book itself is a fantastic compilation that allows you to read these works in their original forms as 'illuminated books'; Blake's artwork is stunning and just further demonstrates his immense creative talents. However, I was amused to see how often Blake ran out of space on a line and had to insert a word above - this is a problem I also frequently come up against, that I have now taken to referring to as 'doing a William Blake'. I feel kind of bad only giving this three stars but that is purely based on my actual enjoyment and the value I got out of this first attempt at reading all of Blake's illuminated books, there is certainly so much potential for further enjoyment and insight to be gained on subsequent read-throughs.

[Glen · Rating 4 out of 5]

"A picture is worth ..." unless it's Blake, then you get 2,000 ... in each picture

Mastery and imagination... classic works of art with the poetry and epochs behind them. "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" (basis of CS Lewis' "The Great Divorce") is an entire mythology, as well as satire (spiritual, political, and literary; Classics as well as his contemporaries).
Terrific Illuminated stories and poems.
This ebook: I wish had put each plate with that page of associated text, rather than different sections for each. But I loved being able to see the plates with the ease of reading the formatted text.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Blake's works are beautiful, but most of the time I haven't got a clue what he's on about if I'm honest. But I kind of like that.

In terms of the printing, I wish the pages had been blown up to the full size of the book rather than kept to the original size. It looks messy and they're hard to read so made it much less enjoyable

[Antiabecedarian · Rating 4 out of 5]

PRETTY pictures. And wonderful pictures. And awful pictures. I mean that in the clearest origin of the words: awe full and wonder full, ok? For my personal study of how I am not able to draw, or perhaps might alter what I have done already, like a touchstone, since it's impossible to imitate; therefore infallible. The first hippie. I wouldn't read Blake unless I had to for a grade. I could look at the pictures all day, though, till the pastel and tortured teenage notebook aspects start to revive my nausea...................... But he's infallible.

Not to mention, no one has surpassed the phrase, "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell." for Life on Earth! It has become ordinary and overused, but give props to the man who made it up. Like I would like to give props to Flannery O'Connor for popularizing delightful biblical phrases for a certain set of educated, secular, modern americans. "Everything that Rises Must Converge." It makes me resent, again, that "The Bible as Literature" was removed from my high school curriculum the year before I got there. IDIOTS. I've never read the bible, nor had a reference for it, but for Flannery O'Connor and the like. No wonder I cannot sate my hunger for Japanese Literature, and stick to "forbearance" as taught by Kenzaburo Oe. And will never ever make sense. I blame YOU, generation Baby Boom, and turn the radio dial towards the truly charismatic for my lessons in "ties that bind."

[Joel Collier · Rating 3 out of 5]

William Blake is the author of some of my all time favorite poems such as Tyger and London, and his illustrations are more than worth the price of this illustrated edition.

However, the longer poems like America border on the unreadable. They are at best epic albeit incomprehensible. The dense symbolism, bizarre philosophy and mythology, and general preachy-ness makes most of Blake’s writing tiresome.

[Angie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A delectable book in terms of design and illustration. Blake still had the need of drawing from his poem's scenes. His was a case like that of Rossetti, who also paint and wrote on a same theme. I still wonder which thing was first. I agree with some comentaries, that this is not exactly a book to approach Blake's poetry, there are other books for that purpose.

[Alyosha · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are going to read Blake then this is a must-have. for it is a reading beyond mere words, and art beyond pictures. Blake fuses vision and word into a transcendental art that burns itself into the brain as he did his art into the copper plate.

[Dan'l Danehy-Oakes · Rating 4 out of 5]

William Blake: engraver, poet, artist, and visionary. Many of the "illuminations" in these books were partially or completely designed by Blake's wife, Catharine (nWilliam Blake: engraver, poet, artist, and visionary. Many of the "illuminations" in these books were partially or completely designed by Blake's wife, Catharine (née Boucher), but there is a continuity to them that suggests that she either shared his vision or subjected herself to it.

And it was a strange vision indeed. The books wander afar in their topics, and sometimes leave the main road entirely (as with the "Songs of Innocense and Experience"), but there is a general sense of a personal mythology, which grows in size and complexity as Blake grows in skill and age.

At its center are four "Zoas," a word which appears to come from Greek meaning "living creatures." They are: Urizen - reason, logic, and law; represengin the rational, but restrictive and oppresive, aspects of mind. Luvah - emotion, passion, and love Tharmas - sensation and the physical body Urthona - imagination and art Each of the Zoas has other names, with the possible exception of Urizen; Urthona, for example, is usually referred to as Los in the material world.

The four Zoas were originally one being, the "Universal Man," Albion, who became selfish and divided. Then the Zoas warred against one another and humanity in general became lost. Some of this is, apparently, covered in Blake's longest poem, "Vala, or the Four Zoas," which was not an Illuminated Book, and is so not included in this eBook.

The two earliest inclusion are All Religions Are One and There Is No Natural Religion , both from 1788, and both quite short. The key proposition of the former is that "The Religions of all Nation are derived from each Nation's different reception of the Poetic Genius, which is everywhere call'd the Spirit of Prophecy;" the latter argues that "...God becomes as we are , that we may be as he is." They re both visually fairly primitive, consisting by and large of line drawings with the text simply inserted.

But the following year brought The Book of Thel , a huge step forward; and 1790 The Marriage of Heaven and Hell , in which the imagery is bolder, more complex, and colored, and the text is wild and choppy. One brief sample will do.

The voice of the Devil

All Bibles or sacred codes have been the causes of the following Errors.
That Man has two real existing principles Viz: a Body & a Soul. That Energy, calld Evil, is alone from the Body & that Reason, calld Good, is alone from the Soul. That God will torment Man in Eternity for following his Energies.

But the following Contraries to these are true
Man has no Body distinct from his Soul for that calld Body is a portion of Soul discernd by the five Senses, the chief inlets of Soul in this age. Energy is the only life and is from the Body nd Reason is the bound or outward circumference of Energy Energy is Eternal Delight

This has gotten hugely long for a review already, and I have to admit that I didn't understand a great deal, especially in the later books. If I ever read them again I think I will have to find a good guidebook first.

[Nathan Dehoff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Published in 2000, this book is just what it says it is, a collection of Blake's texts that were originally produced through his unusual printing method of hand-colored text and illustrations on copper plates, with a result similar to those of traditional illuminated books. While very striking and stylized, including odd spellings and layouts and occasional lines that don't fit properly, the reproductions can be somewhat difficult to read. Fortunately, the complete texts are included in an appendix. Blake is a fascinating and confusing figure, a poet, artist, and engraver with an erratic collection of beliefs. I suppose you could call him a Christian mystic, incorporating Biblical ideas with his own complex mythology and prophecies. He rejected some of the more rigid ideas and forced conformity behind the mainstream Christianity of his time, but also distrusted rationalism and science, and had a particular hatred for the Industrial Revolution. There's some debate on whether he was an advocate of free love, or this was a belief that changed over the course of his life. There are some recurring characters in these poems, each representations of concepts, although they change a bit from one story to another. Albion is a symbol of primordial humanity, but also a giant and a symbol of England. He splits into a few different parts, one of them being Urizen, a manifestation of reason. He's linked to the Gnostic Demiurge, in that he's the architect who creates the world, but also forces uniformity on it. He stands in contrast to Los, who symbolizes imagination, art, and prophecy; and is depicted as a smith. He's the one who builds Golgonooza, a city that's basically an idealized version of London, but is also modeled after a human body, including a vaginal gate and a forge called Bowlahoola. Orc, the spirit of rebellion, is sometimes said to be a son of Los, and opposes Urizen. It's confusing, but compelling. Blake's art is very distinctive, often colorful but faded, and full of dreamlike images and naked people.

[Steve Chisnell · Rating 4 out of 5]

To rate Blake with stars for "enjoyment" seems particularly ill-framed. Those of us who have read him in the simple anthologies--"The Tyger," "The Sick Rose," "A Poison Tree"--perhaps have little idea of the extensive religious/philosophical cosmogony he created that works to rival nearly every Christian reading out there (with apologies to the Blake-ians who are screaming "We told you so"). Reading "Milton" or "Jerusalem" and similar works (I confess I did not read all of the Prophetic works, works that were not engraved, or his marginalia), I was immediately overwhelmed by the dense utterance of Blake's idea of the Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Paradise. Blake "corrects" Milton and then moves on to correct the Church and most of humanity. This sounds preposterous hubris were it not deeply reflective across a lifework of 'infernal' engravings that can only humble anyone audacious enough to allow Blake's texts to work on you. My own reading was saved first by a reading "coach" who is enamored of Blake and Northrop Frye's work, Fearful Symmetry. Without them, I can imagine throwing in the towel early.

So my rating above is not from enjoyment at all but from adoration, from humility, and from a now ongoing reflection on Blake's themes, the role of Man the observer and Creator, the realm and power of Imagination, the notion of the diabolical cycle of society and the role of Reason, etc. Know that to find an understanding of Blake (more so even than thinkers and writers like Milton or Shakespeare), a dutiful period of time and study is essential. This is not an engagement in literature then, per se, but an immersion in our cosmological role and purpose.

[Milo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Blake was likely the first artist I remember disliking, his strange blocky, wooden forms seeming to oppose all that I thought made an illustration or painting ‘good’. How dramatically turn the tides! In the many intervening years between first repulsion and recent devotion I have been turned by Blake’s inherent weirdness; his is a style totally divorced from artistic currents (finding perhaps a vague comparison in Fuseli, though even then a wholly different texture), a sprouting-out of his visionary poetry, in this volume exuded from and between the poetic lines, in images that both double or measure the words, lithe and sculpted bodies, zaps of colour, strange gods and glowering powers. Los and his hammer, the great stones of Druid England, Albion and his Emanation, woven about handwritten texts, vegetative borders, and Jehovah with his golden compass. There is a towering, fearsome aspect to some of these images, not least those of Urizen in his many trials and punishments. Blake is approaching a more total artwork, by which the word (which must inherently appeal, at least in its process, to a rational portion of the mind) must be accompanied by a more immediate image; and the image is construed of the yet faster colour, which strikes the mind as simple qualia. To reduce any element of the work to an inevitable mass-production is the antipathy of Blake; he discovered in the era of mass-production a function that could mass produce the exact contours that begin in the brain, travel down the arm, and enter into art.

[Lottie Wilkinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I brought the large book of his illuminations as I am studying his poems at college, he has a lovely mind which can both create art of ears and eyes.
His messages are equally as relevant now as they were then (perhaps questionable around his attitude around science and school!)

Songs of innocence and experience are just truly something. Highlights of mine are the melancholy of the garden of love, the anger of London, the fear in earths answer and all contrasting poems between each respective collection.

His poetry is accessible easy both to read and comprehend, but that’s only the top of it, his simplicity is purposefully crafted, you can stare at his sparse use of words and yet still find more meaning. Lovely lovely poet!

[Jack Random · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Genius of William Blake

There are few figures in English literature and art more powerful and influential than that of William Blake. In truth it is not an easy read. There are many references that will not be familiar to the uninitiated reader. Push through the difficulty and you will discover a multitude of wise sayings and poetic gems. Blake was a visionary whose work was not greatly appreciated in his time. His artwork is truly inspired and should be treasured on its own.

[Nathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection is really beautiful. The fact that it's large and reproduces the texts in their actual sizes is wonderful, because you can read them and see the images quite clearly.

As for the content, well, Blake was quite the mystic. The writings will be of more interest to people who want to study religious thought of the period than anybody else. The art is extraordinary though, and this is worth picking up even if just as a coffee table art book.

[Joey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've held countless versions of compilations of Blake's work in my hands in the last year of questing for the ultimate presentation. This is it. The only pressing that comes to mind is the Harold Bloom commentary edition, but this well exceeds that one in robust quality.

This has honestly been a problem for me. This book is so beautiful I keep returning to it in lieu of finishing the rest of my stack.

[Dana Paxson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The texts of Blake's work are all available in print, but they generally do not make the illustrations and illuminations easily available in low-cost form. For anyone interested in seeing Blakes inventiveness in full cry, this e-book form offers modest reproductions that put his broad array of talents and skills on display.

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

It took me a while to get through this, and I got lost so many times, but it was a great first read through. I liked some poems more than others, and I'll probably be going back to them. I would say that if Blake was disappointed with the state of affairs back then, then he would absolutely lose his mind now haha.

[Ned Netherwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

A thing of wonderous beauty, giving you a true view of how Blake was a true multimedia artist. The text is a little hard to read at times but who cares when there is genius to be viewed. Still can't make it though the whole epic Jerusalem, though, but the pictures are great😎