31 October 2003

The William Blake Archive is pleased to announce the publication of the electronic edition of The First Book of Urizen copy B. One of eight extant copies--and one of two with all 28 plates--copy B was acquired by the portrait painter George Romney, probably directly from Blake. Now in the Pierpont Morgan Library, it joins copies A, C, F, and G in the Archive and will be joined by copy D in the near future. The plate order for each of these copies is unique.

Urizen is dated 1794 on its title plate, and the first six copies were color printed that year. Copy B was printed the following year and at first sight appears to have been color printed, but it was printed in one ink with watercolor washes and opaque colors applied in simulation of color printing. It was printed on large sheets of paper primarily in a light black ink, with hues of green and brown, as part of a deluxe set of illuminated books printed in the same format. Other books in the Archive from this set are All Religions are One copy A and There is No Natural Religion copy L; The Book of Thel copy F; The Marriage of Heaven and Hell copy D; Visions of the Daughters of Albion copy G; America a Prophecy copies A and B; Songs of Innocence and of Experience copy R.

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
Andrea Laue, technical editor
The William Blake Archive

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