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Electronic Edition Information
Title: Milton a Poem, copy D: electronic edition

Statement of Responsibility:

Editors: Morris Eaves, University of Rochester; Robert Essick, University of California, Riverside; and Joseph Viscomi , University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Sponsor: The Library of Congress, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Rochester

Edition: Blake Archive Description DTD Version 2005

Extent: XML file derived from 1 SGML (ISO 8879) encoded file approx. 604KB; 100 JPEG (ISO/IEC 10918) files ranging in size from 165KB to 1000KB

Statement of Publication: Chapel Hill: Eaves, Essick, Viscomi; CDLA
Date: January 2010

Series: The William Blake Archive

Publication Announcement: The William Blake Archive is pleased to announce the publication of the electronic edition of Milton a Poem copy D. Only four copies of Milton, Blake's most personal epic, are extant. Copy D, from the Rosenwald Collection, Library of Congress, joins copies A, B, and C, previously published in the Archive, enabling the Archive to display the complete production history of this illuminated book.

Blake etched forty-five plates for Milton in relief, with some full-page designs in white-line etching, between c. 1804 (the date on the title page) and c. 1810. Six additional plates (a-f) were probably etched in subsequent years up to 1818. No copy contains all fifty-one plates. The prose "Preface" (plate 2) appears only in copies A and B. Plates a-e appear only in copies C and D, plate f only in copy D. The first printing, late in 1810 or early in 1811, produced copies A-C, printed in black ink and finished in water colors. Blake retained copy C and added new plates and rearranged others at least twice; copy C was not finished until c. 1821. Copy D was printed in 1818 in orange ink and elaborately colored.

Like all the illuminated books in the Archive, the text and images of Milton copy D are fully searchable and are supported by our Inote and ImageSizer applications. With the Archive's Compare feature, users can easily juxtapose multiple impressions of any plate across the different copies of this or any of the other illuminated books. New protocols for transcription, which produce improved accuracy and fuller documentation in editors' notes, have been applied to all copies of Milton in the Archive.

With the publication of Milton copy D, the Archive now contains fully searchable and scalable electronic editions of seventy-three copies of Blake's nineteen 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. In addition to illuminated books, the Archive contains many important manuscripts and series of engravings, sketches, and water color drawings, including illustrations to Thomas Gray's Poems, water color and engraved illustrations to Dante's Divine Comedy, the large color printed drawings of 1795 and c. 1805, the Linnell and Butts sets of the Book of Job water colors and the sketchbook containing drawings for the engraved illustrations to the Book of Job, the water color illustrations to Robert Blair's The Grave, and all nine of Blake's water color series illustrating the poetry of John Milton.

As always, the William Blake Archive is a free site, imposing no access restrictions and charging no subscription fees. The site is made possible by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the continuing support of the Library of Congress, and 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.
Revision History
Task/Change: Final proofing and publication
Date: January 2010
Editors: Morris Eaves,   University of Rochester; Robert Essick,   University of California, Riverside; and Joseph Viscomi,   University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Technical Editor: William Shaw 
Project Manager: Ashley Reed 
Project Assistants: Esther Arnold,   Kate Attkisson,   Lauren Cameron,   Robin Curry,   Andrea Everett,   Joseph Lamperez,   Rachel Lee,   Ali McGhee,   Jennifer Park,   Adair Rispoli,   Sarah Shaw,   Sarah Tolf  Bihan Zhang 
Task/Change: This work has been revised to include corrections and improvements (to the textual transcriptions and editors' notes for consistency, accuracy, and visual presentation) that were not reflected in the original XML conversion.
Date: 2007
Editors: Morris Eaves,   University of Rochester; Robert Essick,   University of California, Riverside; and Joseph Viscomi,   University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Technical Editor: William Shaw 
Project Manager: William Shaw 
Conversion: William Shaw  ; Aziza Technology Associates 
Project Assistants: Kate Attkisson,   Kit Curtin,   Christopher N. Jackson,   Sarah E. Jones,   Ashley Reed,   Wayne C. Ripley,   Sarah Tolf 
Consultant: Wesley N. Raabe 
Task/Change: SGML BAD converted to XML
Date: May 2007
Technical Editor and Project Manager: William Shaw 
Conversion: William Shaw  ; Aziza Technology Associates 
Project Assistants: Kate Attkisson,   Kit Curtin,   Christopher N. Jackson,   Sarah E. Jones,   Ashley Reed,   Wayne C. Ripley,   Sarah Tolf 
Consultant: Wesley N. Raabe 
Task/Change: Images rescanned and color corrected
Date: March 2007
Editors: Morris Eaves,   University of Rochester; Robert Essick,   University of California, Riverside; and Joseph Viscomi,   University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Technical Editor and Project Manager: William Shaw 
Project Assistants: Kate Attkisson,   Christopher N. Jackson,   Sarah Jones,   Ashley Reed,   Wayne C. Ripley,   Sarah Tolf 
Task/Change: Image acquisition, scanning, metadata collection and BAD creation
Date: April 1999
Editors: Morris Eaves,   University of Rochester; Robert Essick,   University of California, Riverside; and Joseph Viscomi,   University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Project Manager: Matthew Kirschenbaum 
Project Assistants: Jessica Kem,   Andrea Laue