18 December 2002

The William Blake Archive is pleased to announce the publication of Blake's 22 engraved Illustrations of the Book of Job. This work is generally considered Blake's masterpiece in traditional line engraving, as well as the culmination of his long pictorial engagement with the Book of Job. His first series of 19 water colors illustrating Job were commissioned c. 1805-06 by his chief patron, Thomas Butts. These are available in the Archive in Preview (see description below). In 1821, Blake and his new patron John Linnell borrowed this Butts set of designs. Linnell traced the series and Blake colored them. Blake also added two more compositions to this later group and added versions of these same compositions to the earlier series, so that both sets now have 21 designs. The Linnell set led directly to his commissioning of the engravings, as set forth in a contract dated 25 March 1823. Blake began the project by executing a series of 21 reduced pencil sketches of the central designs for transfer to the copperplates. According to John Linnell, the border designs, unique to the engraved series, were a last-minute addition. Blake also added a title page, perhaps late in the production process. Although 21 of the plates bear 1825 imprints (the second plate was mistakenly dated 1828), Linnell's account books show that the engravings were not published until March 1826.

The copy reproduced in the Archive is from the first printing on laid India paper with the word Proof appearing lower right on all but the title page. Also included, as the first item, is a copy of the original letterpress cover label for the Job engravings. Our complete transcription of all engraved texts on each plate is the first to be published in any form. Both these inscribed texts and the designs are fully searchable.

At present the Archive contains 48 copies of 18 of Blake's 19 illuminated books, all fully searchable. In addition to the Butts set of Job designs, Blake's illustrations to Milton's "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso" are also available in Preview, our mode of presentation that provides all the features of the Archive except Image Search and Inote (our image annotation program). In the near future we expect to release a much-anticipated electronic edition of Jerusalem copy E, and further supplementary materials, including a biography and glossary and more drawings and prints in Preview, including the Job pencil sketches noted above.

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, 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
Matthew G. Kirschenbaum and Andrea Laue, technical editors
The William Blake Archive

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