Songs of Innocence and of Experience

ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATIONS

Artist, mystic, poet and craftsman, William Blake had a unique view of the world around him. At the age of eight he saw ‘a tree filled with angels’ and his perception of beauty in an idyllic utopia shines from every luminous detail of his paintings and every line of his poems. Songs of Innocence and of Experience is arguably his defining work. Filled with Blake’s illustrated poems that explore adult themes such as death and social justice, this is a collection of great visual and literary power.

This exquisite edition is reproduced from the finest surviving copy, known as ‘Copy W’, which was printed and hand-coloured by Blake, with the largely unacknowledged help of his wife Catherine and is now held at King’s College, Cambridge. Patti Smith has written a profoundly beautiful introduction to the edition, in which she describes Blake as: ‘A rough-hewn seer who never tasted but English air, who loved Michaelangelo yet never saw Rome’; her words further elevating this unique collector’s edition of a remarkable piece of literary history.

ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATIONS

Artist, mystic, poet and craftsman, William Blake had a unique view of the world around him. At the age of eight he saw ‘a tree filled with angels’ and his perception of beauty in an idyllic utopia shines from every luminous detail of his paintings and every line of his poems. Songs of Innocence and of Experience is arguably his defining work. Filled with Blake’s illustrated poems that explore adult themes such as death and social justice, this is a collection of great visual and literary power.

This exquisite edition is reproduced from the finest surviving copy, known as ‘Copy W’, which was printed and hand-coloured by Blake, with the largely unacknowledged help of his wife Catherine and is now held at King’s College, Cambridge. Patti Smith has written a profoundly beautiful introduction to the edition, in which she describes Blake as: ‘A rough-hewn seer who never tasted but English air, who loved Michaelangelo yet never saw Rome’; her words further elevating this unique collector’s edition of a remarkable piece of literary history.

ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATIONS

Artist, mystic, poet and craftsman, William Blake had a unique view of the world around him. At the age of eight he saw ‘a tree filled with angels’ and his perception of beauty in an idyllic utopia shines from every luminous detail of his paintings and every line of his poems. Songs of Innocence and of Experience is arguably his defining work. Filled with Blake’s illustrated poems that explore adult themes such as death and social justice, this is a collection of great visual and literary power.

This exquisite edition is reproduced from the finest surviving copy, known as ‘Copy W’, which was printed and hand-coloured by Blake, with the largely unacknowledged help of his wife Catherine and is now held at King’s College, Cambridge. Patti Smith has written a profoundly beautiful introduction to the edition, in which she describes Blake as: ‘A rough-hewn seer who never tasted but English air, who loved Michaelangelo yet never saw Rome’; her words further elevating this unique collector’s edition of a remarkable piece of literary history.

ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATIONS

Artist, mystic, poet and craftsman, William Blake had a unique view of the world around him. At the age of eight he saw ‘a tree filled with angels’ and his perception of beauty in an idyllic utopia shines from every luminous detail of his paintings and every line of his poems. Songs of Innocence and of Experience is arguably his defining work. Filled with Blake’s illustrated poems that explore adult themes such as death and social justice, this is a collection of great visual and literary power.

This exquisite edition is reproduced from the finest surviving copy, known as ‘Copy W’, which was printed and hand-coloured by Blake, with the largely unacknowledged help of his wife Catherine and is now held at King’s College, Cambridge. Patti Smith has written a profoundly beautiful introduction to the edition, in which she describes Blake as: ‘A rough-hewn seer who never tasted but English air, who loved Michaelangelo yet never saw Rome’; her words further elevating this unique collector’s edition of a remarkable piece of literary history.

ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATIONS

Artist, mystic, poet and craftsman, William Blake had a unique view of the world around him. At the age of eight he saw ‘a tree filled with angels’ and his perception of beauty in an idyllic utopia shines from every luminous detail of his paintings and every line of his poems. Songs of Innocence and of Experience is arguably his defining work. Filled with Blake’s illustrated poems that explore adult themes such as death and social justice, this is a collection of great visual and literary power.

This exquisite edition is reproduced from the finest surviving copy, known as ‘Copy W’, which was printed and hand-coloured by Blake, with the largely unacknowledged help of his wife Catherine and is now held at King’s College, Cambridge. Patti Smith has written a profoundly beautiful introduction to the edition, in which she describes Blake as: ‘A rough-hewn seer who never tasted but English air, who loved Michaelangelo yet never saw Rome’; her words further elevating this unique collector’s edition of a remarkable piece of literary history.

ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATIONS

Artist, mystic, poet and craftsman, William Blake had a unique view of the world around him. At the age of eight he saw ‘a tree filled with angels’ and his perception of beauty in an idyllic utopia shines from every luminous detail of his paintings and every line of his poems. Songs of Innocence and of Experience is arguably his defining work. Filled with Blake’s illustrated poems that explore adult themes such as death and social justice, this is a collection of great visual and literary power.

This exquisite edition is reproduced from the finest surviving copy, known as ‘Copy W’, which was printed and hand-coloured by Blake, with the largely unacknowledged help of his wife Catherine and is now held at King’s College, Cambridge. Patti Smith has written a profoundly beautiful introduction to the edition, in which she describes Blake as: ‘A rough-hewn seer who never tasted but English air, who loved Michaelangelo yet never saw Rome’; her words further elevating this unique collector’s edition of a remarkable piece of literary history.