5 March 2001
The William Blake Archive www.blakearchive.org is pleased to announce the publication of new electronic editions of America a Prophecy copy O and Europe a Prophecy copy K.
America copy O and Europe copy K are both in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, England. They join copies of America and Europe in the Archive from other printings: America copies E (1793) and A (1795), and Europe copies B (1794) and E (1794). Copy M of America, from a c. 1807 printing, and copy H of Europe (a unique monochrome copy) from a 1795 printing, are forthcoming.
The electronic editions have newly edited SGML-encoded texts and new images scanned and color-corrected from first-generation 4x5" transparencies; text and images are each fully searchable and supported by the Inote and ImageSizer applications described in our previous updates.
With the publication of these two titles, the Archive now contains fully searchable and scalable electronic editions of 43 copies of 18 of Blake's 19 illuminated books in the context of full bibliographic information about each work, careful diplomatic transcriptions of all texts, detailed descriptions of all images, and extensive bibliographies. They also join our searchable SGML-encoded electronic edition of David V. Erdman's Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake. With the forthcoming publication of Jerusalem copy E, the Archive will contain at least one copy of each of Blake's works in illuminated printing and multiple copies of most.
America copy O is one of fourteen extant copies of America printed by Blake, one of four colored copies, one of two with the full text of plate 4, one of four without plate e ["Preludium"], and the only copy printed after c. 1807. Europecopy K is one of nine extant copies printed by Blake, one of only two copies with plate 3 ["Five windows light the cavern'd Man"], and the only copy printed after 1795. They are extraordinarily beautiful copies, with each impression bordered by one thin line drawn in red ink a few centimeters outside the edge of the image, setting off each page like a miniature painting.
Produced together in 1821 for the painter John Linnell, Blake's young patron, they were printed in orangish-red ink on one side of J. Whatman paper dated 1818, 1819, and 1820, numbered 1-18, and finished in gold, watercolors, and pen and ink in the same style Blake used in c. 1818 and 1821-22, and 1825-27. Works from these sessions include The Book of Thel copy O, Urizen copy G, Songs of Innocence and of Experience copies Z and AA, and The Marriage of Heaven and Hell copy I, which are in the Archive, and Jerusalem copy E, Visions of the Daughters of Albion copy P, Milton copy D, and The Marriage of Heaven and Hell copy G, each of which will soon enter the Archive.
Morris Eaves, Robert N. Essick, and Joseph Viscomi, editors
Matthew G. Kirschenbaum, technical editor
The William Blake Archive
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