Issues) and Begin with the Summer Issue
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
AN ILLUSTRATED QUARTERLY % urtxen-.C; V. ^e globe afL£ />LocL trvmhUtQG-MlKtersufy ^huuUani at^tght Mrajxcfttrtb out uttu sorts',■ \^{2Fe6& Xt^iemcdenoH'-^eparixts^ $Ure& at lUocdL.mtlk ***U teansf: \HQtutfe 'iemre the Jfwca atl+oa' yfe- UnSk !*tmry&. cn^vUoduAJcJ^pnder, awe,J&zr, ajttorilshmc J%j&n7a~e farm. trem6Un% cuuJLpxU \ Jbtrify the etarnal myi'tctdd:, "*ito*' J* tutor* ju* €Jeady fe(yvM first&maU £rm nov>^ VOLUME 33 NUMBER 4 SPRING 2000 ^y<jla&ie AN ILLUSTRATED QUARTERLY VOLUME 33 NUMBER 4 SPRING 2000 CONTENTS Articles Blake in the Marketplace, 1999 By Robert N. Essick 100 William Blake and His Circle: A Checklist of Publications and Discoveries in 1999 By G. E. Bentley, Jr. 135 ADVISORY BOARD G. E. Bentley, Jr., University of Toronto, retired Nelson Hilton, University of Georgia Martin Butlin, London Anne K. Mellor, University of California, l.os Angeles Detlef W. Dorrbecker, University of Trier Joseph Viscomi, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Robert N. Essick, University of California, Riverside 1 >avid Worrall, St. Mary's College Angela Estcrhammer, University of Western Ontario CONTRIBUTOR SUBSCRIPTIONS are $55 for institutions, $30 for individuals. All subscriptions are by the volume (1 year, 4 issues) and begin with the summer issue. Subscription payments re• G. E. BENTLEY, JR., has just completed The Stranger from Para• ceived after the summer issue will be applied to the 4 issues dise in the Belly of the Beast: A Biography of William Blake. of the current volume. Foreign addresses (except Canada and Mexico) require a $10 per volume postal surcharge for ROBERT N. ESSICK is Professor of English at the University of surface, and $25 per volume surcharge for air mail delivery. California, Riverside. U.S. currency or international money order necessary. Make checks payable to Blake/An Illustrated Quarterly. Address all subscription orders and related communications to Patricia Neill, Blake, Department of English, University of Roches• ter, Rochester, NY 14627. EDITORS BACK ISSUES are available at a reduced price. Address Patricia Neill for a list of issues and prices. EDITORS: Morris Eaves and Morton D. Paley BIBLIOGRAPHER: G. E. Bentley, Jr. MANUSCRIPTS are welcome. Send two copies, typed and docu• REVIEW EDITOR: Nelson Hilton mented according to forms suggested in The MLA Style ASSOCIATE EDITOR FOR GREAT BRITAIN: David Worrall Manual, to either of the editors: Morris Eaves, Dept. of En• glish, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627; Morton PRODUCTION OFFICE: Patricia Neill, Department of English, D. Paley, Dept. of English, University of California, Berke• University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627 ley, CA 94720-1030. Electronic submissions are strongly en• MANAGING EDITOR: Patricia Neill couraged. You may send a diskette, or you may send your TELEPHONE 716/275-3820 article as an attachment to an email message. The optimal FAX 716/442-5769 format is Microsoft Word. Other formats are usually accept• PRODUCTION OFFICE EMAIL: [email protected] able. No articles will be returned unless accompanied by a stamped self-addressed envelope. Morris Eaves, Department of English, University of Roch• ester, Rochester NY 14627 Email: [email protected] INTERNATIONAL STANDARD SERIAL NUMBER: 0160-628X. Blake/An Illustrated Quarterly is indexed in the Modern Language Association's International Bibliography, the Modern Hu• Morton D. Paley, Department of English, University of Cali• manities Research Association's Annual Bibliography of En• fornia, Berkeley CA 94720-1030 glish Language and Literature, The Romantic Movement: A Email: [email protected] Selective and Critical Bibliography (ed. David V. Erdman et G. E. Bentley, Jr., 246 MacPherson Avenue, Toronto, Ontario al.), American Humanities Index, Arts and Humanities Ci• M4V 1A2. The University of Toronto declines to forward mail. tation Index, Current Contents and the Bibliography of the Email: [email protected] History of Art. Nelson Hilton, Department of English, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602 Email: [email protected] © 2000 Copyright Morris Eaves and Morton D. Paley David Worrall, St. Mary's College, Strawberry Hill, Cover: The First Book ofUrizen, copy E, pi. 18. Photo cour• Waldegrave Road, Twickenham TW1 4SX England tesy of Sotheby's New York. Email: [email protected] INFORMATION MAKE/AN ILLUSTRATED QUARTERLY is published under the spon• sorship of the Department of English, University of Roch• ester. ARTICLES Urizen copy E, not seen by scholars for many decades, at• tracted a large cohort of Blakeans (including E. B. Bentley, G. E. Bentley, Jr., Morris Eaves, Joseph Viscomi, John Windle, Blake in the Marketplace, 1999 and your reporter) to view the volume on the day before the sale. We were all motivated by the fear that this would be our only opportunity to study a copy of Urizen soon to dis• appear into an anonymous private collection. The party re• BY ROBERT N. ESSICK assembled the next day to witness what we hoped would be a spirited contest between two or more angels (devils?) strug• he lackluster market of 1998 gave way to a more excit• gling for possession of a treasure. We were not disappointed. Ting year of discoveries in the 1999 marketplace. The Six bidders soon raced through the low estimate of $500,000; first newsworthy artifact emerged in January. For many four stayed the course as the bidding passed $ 1 million. Two years, there have been only six traced complete copies of the dropped out in the neighborhood of $1.5 million. The battle 1802 Designs to a Series of Ballads, authored by William between the remaining contenders, both delivering their bids Hayley and illustrated with 14 plates designed and engraved via telephone, was swift; neither flinched until one suddenly by Blake. A fugitive copy, first recorded in the Gosford auc• dropped out when the other had the winning bid at $2.3 tion catalogue of 1884 and last described in a Rosenbach million. With the buyer's premium added, the total came to catalogue of late 1944, turned up in an American private $2,532,500. This was of course a record for a work by Blake, collection in December 1998. The anonymous owner placed surpassing the $ 1.32 million the same collector paid in 1989 the book on consignment with Ursus Books of New York. for Songs of Innocence and of Experience copy D. I believe After complex negotiations undertaken on my behalf by John that the Urizen sale also established the second highest price Windle, the San Francisco book dealer who specializes in ever achieved at auction for a printed book in English, ex• Blake and his circle, I acquired the volume late in January ceeded only by the £4.6 million paid by J. Paul Getty, Jr., in 1999. See Appendix 2 for a listing of the seven complete cop• 1998 for Caxton's c. 1476 edition of The Canterbury Tales. ies of the 1802 Ballads I have been able to trace—plus one The purchaser of Urizen was the American private collector tantalizing copy still untraced. who, over the last 20 years, has created an outstanding col• Windle continues to be the world's major dealer in all lection of Blake's illuminated books, including copies of things Blakean. In March, he acquired a large number of Songs of Innocence, The Book ofThel, America, Songs of In• Blake prints from at least four sources. Most are book illus• nocence and of Experience, and Jerusalem. I have not been trations detached from their volumes, but the group includes able to determine the identity of the "underbidder" (the "The Man Sweeping the Interpreter's Parlour." He contin• person with the bid immediately prior to the winning bid), ued to acquire books throughout the summer and early fall but imagine what it must be like to bid $2.2 million for a and placed on his website (www.johnwindle.com) an online book of 24 pages and not get it. catalogue, offering 237 lots (some with multiple copies), in The day before the sale, the assembled Blakeans joined late November. This catalogue 31 will be published in printed forces and spent some two hours going through the Whitney form early in 2000. All materials in the online catalogue rel• Urizen, thanks to Kimball E. Higgs, Assistant Vice President evant to this sales review are listed below. Windle intends to of Sotheby's Book Department. Joe Viscomi acted as unof• issue catalogues devoted exclusively to Blake and his circle ficial ringmaster of the show, explaining, as only he can, the at intervals of about 18 months. minute particulars of color printing. The sequence of plates In the last sales review (Blake 32 [1999]: 93), I mentioned is unique: 1, 3, 5, 9, 2, 6, 14, 7, 10, 8, 11, 22, 13, 15, 18, 17, the death of Betsey Gushing Whitney, March 1998, her own• 19, 12, 20, 21, 23, 26-28 (Bentley numbers, used through• ership of an impression of The Good and Evil Angels Slru^ out this discussion). Thus, the rediscovery of copy E does glingfor Possession of a Child (Butlin #324), and the possi• not change the fact that no two copies of Urizen have the bility of discovering in her collection Visions of the Daugh• same plates in the same order. The mobility of full-page il• ters of Albion copy N and The Book of Urizen copy E. The lustrations is hardly surprising; the placement or absence executors of Mrs. Whitney's estate have decided not to sell of text plates needs more consideration. The Good and Evil Angels in the foreseeable future. A thor• Rather than beginning with the title page and"Preludium" ough search of her library failed to find Visions, but Urizen (pi.