Blake's Poetry and Designs: Authoritative Texts, Illuminations in Color and Monochrome, Related Prose, Criticism (Norton Critical Edition)

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Summary: Blake's Poetry and Designs
Review: Nice book, but too bad its front picture cover is defaced by Norton's double-layer of big gold stickers with high-tack adhesive that makes them impossible to remove without adhesive remaining on the cover.

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Summary: Very good text for introducing Blake to students
Review: This is a book is quite good as most Norton Critical Editions are. It has a lot of what is needed by students for a course on Blake or, more likely, a course that spends part of a term on Blake.

It has some biographical material and some maps of England and London at the time Blake lived. There are also a good helping of black and white as well as color plates of Blake's illuminated works. The color plates are only good - the color is not produced beautifully. The student will only get an impression of the true power of Blake's artistry. However, a good teacher will point the student to the Blake Archive at:... so the students can see the works more completely with variants and in better color (if you have good video cards and monitors).

One of the best parts of this book begins on page 176 where working drafts are shown and compared to the final versions. There is also a nice selection of critical writing on Blake - criticism from Blake's time through the present. There is also a useful bibliography.

In some ways this is "Erdman Lite", but it is much more portable than Erdman and for an introductory course on Blake it is probably sufficient. I am glad that I have it in my library.

But please don't stop here!

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Summary: Come and see a world in a grain of sand . . .
Review: This is absolutely the best compendium of Blake's work whicharticualtes an outstanding range of his vision. Thisedition acknowledges the poetry and color paintings of a consumate craftsman of the imagination on high quality, acid free paper and is nylon stitched and bound in signatures to last a lifetime. Books are rarely made this way but the Norton edition is a beautiful rendering of the first, and perhaps, primary British Romantic poet.