Over at the William Blake Archive we've finally published our electronic edition of Jerusalem, copy E, Blake's masterpiece in illuminated printing. It's taken us years. Here's part of our announcement:
Consisting of 100 relief and white-line etchings divided into four chapters, Jerusalem is his longest illuminated book, and its plates are among his largest, approximately 22.5 x 16 cm. . . . Copy E, the only complete colored copy, is magnificent. All but one plate (51, in black ink) were printed in red-orange on one side of large sheets of J. Whatman 1820 paper, elaborately finished in watercolors, pen and ink, and gold. Each impression is numbered in pen and ink in the top right corner; the first two pages have decorative borders and all the others have one thin line drawn in red-orange ink around the image, setting off each page like a miniature painting. Blake is reputed to have worked on this colored copy well into his final years, though he never found a buyer.
These images are truly exquisite. The full text of the announcement is available below.
5 March 2003
The William Blake Archive
the publication of the electronic edition of _Jerusalem The Emanation of
The Giant Albion_ copy E. _Jerusalem_ is Blake's masterpiece in
illuminated printing, and this copy is his greatest achievement in the
medium. Consisting of 100 relief and white-line etchings divided into four
chapters, _Jerusalem_ is his longest illuminated book, and its plates are
among his largest, approximately 22.5 x 16 cm. Though dated 1804 on its
title plate, it was not printed in its entirety until c. 1820. Five
complete copies are extant, along with one incomplete colored copy
(chapter 1 only) and three complete posthumous copies.
Copy E, the only complete colored copy, is magnificent. All but one plate
(51, in black ink) were printed in red-orange on one side of large sheets
of J. Whatman 1820 paper, elaborately finished in watercolors, pen and
ink, and gold. Each impression is numbered in pen and ink in the top right
corner; the first two pages have decorative borders and all the others
have one thin line drawn in red-orange ink around the image, setting off
each page like a miniature painting. Blake is reputed to have worked on
this colored copy well into his final years, though he never found a
buyer.
Copy E, from the Paul Mellon Collection of the Yale Center for British
Art, joins other copies in the Archive printed and colored in this late
style: _America a Prophecy_ copy O, _Europe a Prophecy_ copy K, _The
Marriage of Heaven and Hell_ copies G and I, _Visions of the Daughters of
Albion_ copy P, _The Book of Thel_ copy O, _The Book of Urizen_ copy G,
and _Songs of Innocence and of Experience_ copies Z and AA. _Jerusalem_
copy E will eventually be joined by copy A, whose plates in part 1 are
arranged differently, and by copy I, a posthumous copy, presumably
printed by Frederick Tatham, who inherited all of Blake's plates and art
works, including _Jerusalem_ copy E, after Blake's wife Catherine died.
As recipients of our Archive Updates are well aware, we have been working
on _Jerusalem_ copy E for several years. The challenges presented by its
scope and difficulty made it an attractive laboratory, in effect, for
experiments in editorial method. Many of the adjustments in protocols and
processes that arose as solutions to the problems of creating an
electronic edition of _Jerusalem_ have already been introduced into other
works we have published in the meantime. These include significant
alterations in transcription, display, editorial notation, even in line
numbering. We also took the opportunity to rescan all of our first
generation 4 x 5 inch color transparencies at higher resolution on better
equipment, producing digital images of exceptional fidelity and beauty
that capture even the texture of the paper. This rescanning and
color-correcting process took over two years.
The Archive now contains at least one copy of each of Blake's 19
illuminated books, and in most cases includes copies from each of the
printings of the books, for a current total of 49 copies, all fully
searchable. In addition to the books, the Archive includes the engraved
_Illustrations of the Book of Job_, generally considered Blake's
masterpiece in traditional line engraving and the culmination of his long
pictorial engagement with the Book of Job. His first series of 19 watercolors
illustrating Job (commissioned c. 1805-06 by his chief patron, Thomas
Butts) are available in the Archive in Preview, our mode of presentation
that provides all the features of the Archive except Image Search and
Inote (our image annotation program). Also in Preview are Blake's
illustrations to Milton's "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso." Also
forthcoming this year are Blake's engraved designs for Robert Blair's _The
Grave_, Edward Young's _Night Thoughts_, and the Job pencil sketches,
along with an illustrated Blake biography and glossary and
never-before-reproduced copies of illuminated books.
As always, the William Blake Archive is a free site, imposing no access
restrictions and charging no subscription fees. The site is made possible
through the continuing support of the Library of Congress, the Institute
for Advanced Technology in the Humanities at the University of Virginia,
by a major grant from the Preservation and Access Division of the National
Endowment for the Humanities, by the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill, and by the cooperation of the international array of
libraries and museums that have generously given us permission to
reproduce works from their collections in the Archive.
Morris Eaves, Robert N. Essick, and Joseph Viscomi, editors
Matthew G. Kirschenbaum and Andrea Laue, technical editors
The William Blake Archive