For Children: The Gates of Paradise

Through a numbered series of emblems with inscriptions ranging from single words to brief aphorisms, Blake puts the course of human life from birth to death in psychological perspective. Some of the plates form narrative sequences; others exemplify mental states and their reification in the external world.

Blake etched in intaglio the eighteen plates of For Children in 1793 and printed all extant copies (A-E) in the same year. The imprint on plate 2, the title plate, reads "Published by W Blake No 13 Hercules Buildings Lambeth and J. Johnson St. Pauls' Church Yard." In copy A the title page is a proof that bears fragments of an erased imprint that may refer to J. Dodsley as the publisher or co-publisher. There is no other evidence that either Johnson (a bookseller for whom Blake executed many engravings) or Dodsley actually participated in the publication or selling of the book. Copy D has been supplemented with two plates (19, 20) etched c. 1820 as part of Blake's revision of For Children into For the Sexes: The Gates of Paradise, plus an additional impression of plate 2 in its later, For the Sexes, state.