William Blake Complete Illuminated Books - Poetry & Art Collection for Literature Lovers

This book is a complete collection of Blake's "Illuminated" works. If you are interested at all in Blake, or even think you might be at some point, you will want to buy this book eventually -- and now is as good a time as any. It is convenient, relatively inexpensive (as of this writing), and with only a very few unfortunate exceptions (a few pages out of 400) provides a remarkable experience to the reader.The book contains high-resolution scans of Blake's pages. These scans are at their original scale, and by modern standards are quite small, hence most of the complaints about needing magnifying glasses. Several copies exist of each of Blake's originals, and only one such copy is reproduced here for each of the works. The originals are among the most valuable literary artifacts in existence and it was not a trivial matter for the book's editors to scan them. However the legibility of some of the original pages selected is simply poor, aside from their size. I am still young and sharp eyed and had no trouble reading those plates with clear printing even when the text was tiny; but there are places where the printed impression of the text is simply too faded to be read. For instance, Urizen 21. There is a complete typeset text in the back of the book, but it must be said that reading Blake's writings in their original Illuminated context is a very much superior experience, and every time the reader must flip to the back it is an unpleasant interruption. No doubt the editors had their reasons for selecting the originals as they did, but I very much wish they had put more emphasis on legibility in their choice, especially given their perfectly defensible insistence on preserving the scale of the originals.The choice to scan an uncolored print of America: A Prophecy is likewise questionable, but is at least noted and defended. This collection has a clear policy of minimal commentary, but in cases where there is significant variation in text between printings -- for instance the obvious defacing of a suggestive couplet on Thel 6 -- there ought to have been *some* note on at least the existence of such variations, even if explanation and commentary is outside the editorial bounds.These are minor criticisms: right now this is the definitive edition of Blake's Illuminated Books for a regular audience. If you are even slightly farsighted -- have ever even considered reading glasses -- you will probably need them if not a magnifying glass for this. Have them handy and you will spare yourself some frustration. But the experience is worth it, and you will be no worse off than Blake's original audience.