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B L KE AN ILLUSTRATED QUARTERLY ·nw IT.\T.L\ :\ Pl' l'J>ET s IJO W. ('., .J, u Blake and His Circle: A Checklist of Publications and Discoveries in 2009 VOLUME44 NUMBER 1 SUMMER2010 AN ILLUSTRATED QUARTERLY www.blakequarterly.org VOLUME44 NUMBER 1 SUMMER2010 c 0 N T E N T s Article William Blake and His Circle: A Checklist of Publications and Discoveries in 2009 By G. E. Bentley, Jr., with the assistance of Hikari Sato for Japanese publications 4 A D V I S 0 R y B 0 A R D G. E. Bentley, Jr., University of Toronto, retired Nelson Hilton, University of Georgia Martin Butlin, London Anne K. Mellor, University of California, Los Angeles DetlefW. Dorrbecker, University of Trier Joseph Viscomi, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Robert N. Essick, University of California, Riverside David Worrall, The Nottingham Trent University Angela Ester hammer, University of Zurich CONTRIBUTOR David Worrall, Faculty of Humanities, The Nottingham Trent University, Clifton Lane, Nottingham NG 11 SNS UK Email: [email protected]. uk G. E. BENTLEY, JR., is attempting, thus far in vain, to persuade Blake schola~s that he has identified Blake's most seen, least known picture. INFORMATION BLAKE/AN ILLUSTRATED QUARTERLY is published under the sponsorship of the Department ofEnglish, University of Roch ester. Subscriptions are $66 for institutions, $33 for individu als. All subscriptions are by the volume (1 year, 4 issues) and begin with the summer issue. Subscription payments received after the summer issue will be applied to the current volume. Addresses outside the US, Canada, and Mexico require a $20 per volume postal surcharge for airmail delivery. Credit card payment is available. Make checks payable to Blake! An Illus trated Quarterly. Address all subscription orders and related communications to Sarah Jones, Blake, Department of Eng lish, University of Rochester, Rochester NY 14627-0451. Back issues are available; address Sarah Jones for information on issues and prices, or consult the web site. MANUSCRIPTS are welcome in either hard copy or electronic form. Send two copies, typed and documented according to forms suggested in the MLA Style Manual, and with pages E D I T 0 R s numbered, to either of the editors. No articles will be returned unless accompanied by a stamped self-addressed envelope. For electronic submissions, you may send a disk, or send your EDITORS: Morris Eaves and Morton D. Paley article as an attachment to an email message; please number BIBLIOGRAPHER: G. E. Bentley, Jr. the pages of electronic submissions. REVIEW EDITOR: Alexander S. Gourlay ASSOCIATE EDITOR FOR GREAT BRITAIN: David Worrall INTERNATIONAL STANDARD SERIAL NUMBER: 0160-628x. Blake!An Illustrated Quarterly is indexed in the Modern Lan PRODUCTION OFFICE: Department of English, Morey 410, guage Association's International Bibliography, the Modern University of Rochester, Rochester NY 14627-0451 Humanities Research Association's Annual Bibliography of MANAGING EDITOR: Sarah Jones [email protected] English Language and Literature, Humanities International TELEPHONE: 585/275-3820 FAX : 585/442-5769 Complete, Arts and Humanities Citation Index, Current Con tents, Scopus, and the Bibliography of the History of Art. Morris Eaves, Department of English, University of Rochester, Rochester NY 14627-0451 Email: [email protected] Morton D. Paley, Department of English, University of © 2010 Copyright Morris Eaves and Morton D. Paley California, Berkeley CA 94720-1030 Email: [email protected] G. E. Bentley, Jr., 246 MacPherson Avenue, Toronto, Ontario M4V 1A2 Canada Cover: An engraving, improbably attributed to William Blake, af Alexander S. Gourlay, Department of English, Rhode Island ter a drawing ascribed to Samuel Collings. 23.5 x 15.9 cm. City of School of Design, 2 College Street, Providence RI 02903-2 717 London, London Metropolitan Archives, main print collection, Email: [email protected] record 26963. See "Red Herring" in the introductory essay. A R T I c L E Commercial Engravings Previously unknown works with engravings after Blake's designs were first recorded in 2009: the Diamond Bible (1832- William Blake and His Circle: 34, 1836-37, 1840) with a copy of Blake's engraving of "Job and His Family"; Diario de los ninos (1839-40) with copies of A Checklist of Publications and Blake's Blair designs via Mora's Meditaciones poeticas; and a Discoveries in 2009 new printing (1835) of Stuart and Revett's Antiquities of Ath ens. The most remarkable is Diario de Los ninos, only the sec ond time designs by Blake were lithographed (the first was BY G. E. BENTLEY, JR. "Enoch" [1807]) and the first printing-by almost a century of anything concerned with Blake in Mexico. WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF HIKARI SATO Catalogues and Bibliographies FOR JAPANESE PUBLICATIONS A marvelous new resource is J. R. de J. Jackson, Bibliography Editors' note: Addenda and corrigenda to Blake Records, 2nd of Romantic Poetry 1770-1835, which is online at the Univer ed. (2004), which have traditionally formed an appendix to sity of Toronto Library <http://jacksonbibliography.library. this article, now appear on the journal's web site <http://www. utoronto.ca>. Phase 1, which is up and running, presents blakequarterly.org>. They will be updated yearly. 17,160 entries for 1798-1835. Phase 2, "in an advanced state of preparation;' will add 5,359 entries for 1770-97. The Blake en tries in phase 1 (Milton and Jerusalem) are derivative, but the Blake Publications ·and Discoveries in 2009 thousands of other entries are de visu and wonderfully useful. Artcyclopedia <http://www.artcyclopedia.com> searches by Perhaps the most remarkable discovery of 2009 was that artist's name to provide links to images at institutional web Blake took an apprentice named Thomas Owen in 1788 (see sites (e.g., 41 Blake images at the Art Gallery of New South illus. 1). 1 Scarcely anything more is known about Owen or his Wales, Sydney). apprenticeship. The major discovery of 2009 for me has been Google Books The term of the apprenticeship (1788-95) coincides with a <http://books.google.com>. Despite all the hype, this is a period of enormous productivity for Blake. How much of this wonderfully useful resource. Of course I had heard of it as fecundity was fostered by the assistance of an apprentice able one of those grandiose cyber-vauntings and its challenge to to take on some of the drudgery of polishing plates, sharp copyright, but I had no conception of how far the project has ening gravers, mixing colors, and laying in outlines, not to advanced or the sophistication of the means of access. Google mention casual carrying and fetching, which would otherwise Books has made possible the discovery of scores of previously have fallen upon Blake and Catherine? unreported references to Blake in publications of 1780-1862, a surprising number of them in French and German. Blake's Writings The volume accompanying the Blake exhibition at the Pe tit Palais in Paris is a handsome quarto. It consists of three Blake's letter of 7 August 1804, which disappeared a cen streams of information: the first and smallest is the catalogue tury and a quarter ago, reappeared in 2009 and, happily for of the works exhibited, the second is 31 short essays, and the us all, was acquired by Robert N. Essick. Essick will publish third is the 173 striking reproductions. a transcription which will supersede the fragments quoted in The essays, mostly by distinguished Blake scholars, are catalogues of 1878, 1885, and 2009. carefully organized to encompass Blake's whole career from Thel pl. 7, Urizen pls. 7, 11-12, 17, 19, 23, and Marriage pl. his apprenticeship to his reputation in England, the United 16 from Small Book of Designs (B), which were displayed at States, and France. The scholars, like the loaning institutions, the Tate in 2007-08, have now been sold by their still-anony are mostly British and French. mous owner to the Tate. There has been far too little coordination of the text with Songs pl. 30 wa~ acquired by Victoria University in the Uni the reproductions, which are often scarcely related to the versity of Toronto. essays. The surprising rewards of the most original of the es New printings of Blake's work (mainly poems from Songs) says here-those by David Alexander, Robin Simon, and Jon were discovered in publications predating Gilchrist's Life. Stallworthy-are not significantly reinforced by the many il lustrations. 2 1. David Alexander, "William Blake, graveur d'interpretation" (see William Blake [1757-1827}: Le Genie visionnaire du romantisme anglais 2. The most important visual feature referred to in the text (96)-the under 2009 in Part IV) 80. See also the addenda to BR(2), online. cricket bat in the second plate of "Pre tintant" ("The Ecchoing Green")- 4 Blake/ An Illustrated Quarterly Summer 2010 1. Record of the apprenticeship of Thomas Owen to William apprenticeship (7 years), the fee paid for the apprentice (£52.10.0 Blake, from the Apprenticeship Books 1710-1811 (ref. IRl/33 or 50 guineas), and the duty paid on the fee (£2.12.6). [pp. 218-19]) in the National Archives. The book is for apprenticeships outside the City of London, The record is in a large folio volume. On the verso of one where Blake was apprenticed. The record was first cited by leaf (above) are the date (Thursday 10 July [17]88), the name David Alexander (see note 1). The only previous record of a of the master (W". Blake), his parish (St. James's, Westminster, Blake apprentice known to me is in the fiction by Peter Carter, County of Middlesex), his trade (engraver), and the name of the The Gates of Paradise <BBS p.