Bibliography

Ackroyd, Peter. Blake. 1995. New York: Knopf, 1996.

The best biography of Blake to date.

Bentley, G.E., Jr. Blake Books. Oxford: Clarendon-Oxford UP, 1977.

An annotated bibliography.

Bentley, G.E., Jr. Blake Books Supplement. Oxford: Clarendon-Oxford UP, 1995.

Damon, S. Foster. A Blake Dictionary: The Ideas and Symbols of William Blake. Providence, RI: Brown UP, 1965.

An invaluable aid to the reading of Blake. Although some of Damon's interpretations are open to question, his book is still one you will want by you as you read Blake.

De Luca, V.A. "A Wall of Words: The Sublime as Text." Unnam'd Forms: Blake and Textuality. Ed. Nelson Hilton and Thomas A. Vogler. Berkeley: U of California P, 1986. 218-41.

Erdman, David. Blake Prophet Against Empire: A Poet's Interpretation of the History of His Own Time. 1954. 3rd ed. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1977.

A pioneering study that places Blake in the context of his time

Erdman, David, ed. The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake. Rev. ed. Berkeley: U of California P, 1982.

The standard edition of Blake's works.

Erdman, David, ed. The Illuminated Blake: All of William Blake's Illuminated Works with a Plate by Plate Commentary. Garden City, NY: Anchor-Doubleday, 1974.

Although it has been replaced by Blake's Illuminated Books in six volumes published by Princeton UP, it still offers an interesting commentary on the different plates. For those who cannot afford the $65 to $85 per volume price of the Princeton set, it is also a considerable value even though the reproductions are black and white.

Easson, Kay Parkhurst, and Roger R. Easson, eds. The Book of Urizen. By William Blake. Boulder, CO: Shambala; New York: Random, 1978.

Color reproductions of the plates and a commentary.

Essick, Robert N. William Blake Printmaker. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1980.

An important study of the techniques Blake used in making his prints and his illuminated books.

Frosch, Thomas R. The Awakening of Albion: The Renovation of the Body in the Poetry of William Blake. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1974.

A study of Blake's mythology, emphasizing the version of the mythos developed in Milton and Jerusalem.

Frye, Northrop. Fearful Symmetry: A Study of William Blake. 1947. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1969.

A seminal study of Blake's works and mythology, emphasizing the version of the myth developed in The Four Zoas.

Hilton, Nelson. Literal Imagination: Blake's Vision of Words. Berkeley: U of California P, 1983.

An examination of how Blake's various plays on words generate the meaning of the text.

Mee, Jon. Dangerous Enthusiasm: William Blake and the Culture of Radicalism in the 1790s. Oxford: Clarendon-Oxford UP, 1992.

A study of the political context of Blake's works in the 1790s, the period that saw the production of the Urizen books, with readings of these books.

Mitchell, W.J.T. Blake's Composite Art: A Study of the Illuminated Poetry. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1978.

A valuable study of the interaction of text and illustration in Blake's illuminated books. There is an important study of The Book of Urizen.

Stevenson, W.H. The Complete Poems. By William Blake. 1971. London: Longman; New York: Norton, 1972.

A text of the Blake's poems with careful annotations.

Tannenbaum, Leslie. Biblical Tradition in Blake's Early Prophecies: The Great Code of Art. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1982.

A study of Blake's complex use of the Bible, containing readings of the Urizen books.

Thompson, E.P. Witness Against the Beast: William Blake and the Moral Law. New York: New Press, 1993.

A study of Blake in the context of London radicalism by the major historian of radicalism in England in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century.

Viscomi, Joseph. Blake and the Idea of the Book. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1993.

An invaluable study of how Blake produced the illuminated books, explaining in detail the method of relief etching he invented.

Worrall, David, ed. Blake's Illuminated Books, Vol. 6: The Urizen Books. By William Blake. Princeton: William Blake Trust/Princeton UP, 1995.

An invaluable edition of the Urizen books, with color reproductions of the books and a thorough commentary on the plates and the text.