4 April 2007

The William Blake Archive is pleased to announce the publication of electronic editions of copies A and B of Songs of Innocence and of Experience, both in the British Museum. Copy B is here reproduced in color for the first time, and, like all the illuminated books in the Archive, the texts and images of both copies are fully searchable and are supported by our Inote and ImageSizer applications.

Songs copy B is one of the first copies of the combined Songs. Along with copies C, previously published in the Archive (see the update for 9 March 1999), D, and E (forthcoming), it was formed in 1794 of Innocence plates printed in raw sienna on both sides of the leaf in 1789 and Experience plates lightly color printed in yellow ochre in the same format in 1794. By this time, Blake had decided to move plates 34-36 ("The Little Girl Lost" and "The Little Girl Found") from Innocence to Experience, but since plate 34 was printed on the verso of the leaf with plate 26 ("A Dream"), plate 26, another Innocence poem, is placed in this copy, as well as in copies C and D, in the Experience section. And, like copies C and D, copy B is missing plate 52 ("To Tirzah") but has the small vignette known as plate a (five cherubs and an adult male), one of Blake's earliest relief etchings used here as a tailpiece.

Blake printed copy A in 1795 on large sheets of I. TAYLOR paper along with copy R, previously published in the Archive (see the update for 14 December 1999). This was the first time that Blake printed the Innocence and Experience plates in the same session and printed plates 34-36 as Experience plates. Nevertheless, he apparently meant for the two sections to form separate works. He did not print the combined title plate, printed Innocence in grayish black ink and Experience in an olivish light black ink, and stabbed and numbered the two parts as separate volumes. Copy A was produced as part of a set of illuminated books printed on large paper, approximately 38 x 27 cm, and joins other works from the large-paper set now in the Archive (All Religions are One copy A, 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 copy A, Europe, a Prophecy copy H, Songs copy R, The First Book of Urizen copy B).

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 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
William Shaw, project manager
The William Blake Archive