3 December 2001

The William Blake Archive is pleased to announce the Archive's first mirror site. Hosted at Oxford University in Oxford, England, the mirror is available at www.blakearchive.org.uk. The Archive averages 1,600+ visits per day, and many of these "visits" originate from British domains. Intended to improve access speed for our British and European users, the mirror can be accessed from our welcome and index pages as well as at the URL listed above. All Archive materials are available at both sites.

The Humanities Computing Unit (HCU), a division of the Oxford University Computing Services (OUCS), hosts this mirror. The Blake mirror is the second such partnership between the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities (IATH) and the HCU. The Archive joins a growing list of Web-based humanities research projects that target and reach a global audience. A second Blake mirror in the Pacific is also in the works.

We would like to thank Conall O'Brien (Systems Administrator, Network Systems Management Service, OUCS), Kirk Hastings (Lead Programmer/Analyst, IATH), and Andrea Laue (Project Manager, William Blake Archive) for their efforts on this project. In addition, Lou Burnard (Manager, HCU) and John Unsworth (Director, IATH) should be recognized for their support.

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 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, and by the cooperation of the international array of libraries and museums that have generously given us permission to represent works from their collections in the Archive.

At present the Archive contains 41 copies of 18 of Blake's 19 illuminated books, plus a fully SGML-encoded electronic edition of David. V. Erdman's Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake. In the near future we expect to release a much-anticipated electronic edition of Jerusalem, copy E; the publication of Blake's longest (and perhaps most spectacular) work will render the Archive's illuminated collection complete, with at least one copy of every work and multiple copies of most. At that point, in addition to continuing to publish additional copies of the works in illuminated printing, we will begin to incorporate Blake's accomplishments in other media (paintings, drawings, commercial and original engravings, and manuscripts). By spring we also plan to publish collection handlists for each of the Archive's contributing institutions. Future supplementary materials include a biography and glossary as well as improved, searchable versions of our bibliographies.

Morris Eaves, Robert N. Essick, and Joseph Viscomi, editors
Matthew G. Kirschenbaum, technical editor
The William Blake Archive

Blake Archive Homepage