Books by William Blake

Blake's Selected Poems (Dover Thrift Editions)

by William Blake

Regarded by a contemporary as a "brilliant eccentric whose works skirted the outer fringes of English art and literature," William Blake (1757–1827) is today recognized as a major poet and artist. This collection of 104 poems, carefully chosen by noted Blake scholars David and Virginia Erdman, reveals the lyricism, mystical vision, and consummate craftsmanship that have earned the poet his preeminent place with both critics and the general public. Among the selections included here are "Proverbs of Hell" from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell ― a satire on religion and morality considered Blake's most inspired and original work; "A Song of Liberty," "The Argument," "The Mental Traveller," "Gwin, King of Norway," "The Land of Dreams," "William Bond," "To the Evening Star," and many more.

Songs of Innocence by Blake, William ( Author ) ON Jul-20-1992, Paperback

by William Blake

As both painter and poet, William Blake (1757–1827) was a powerful and visionary artist whose two early collections of poetry, Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, contain memorable lyric verses embodying the emerging spirit of Romanticism. The two works were published together in 1794 with the subtitle, "Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul."
The poems of Songs of Innocence describe childhood states of naturalness and purity in delicately beautiful lyrics that reveal a child's unspoiled and beatific view of life and human nature. In Songs of Experience the mood and tone darken, the poems suggesting the bitter corruptions and disillusionment that await the innocent. The contrast between the two sets of lyrics is perhaps at its most acute in the poems "The Lamb" and "The Tyger," the latter ultimately expressing wonderment at the seemingly paradoxical coexistence of good and evil. The full texts of all the poems in the 1794 edition of both collections are included in this volume.

Essential Blake (Essential Poets)

by William Blake

From the introduction by Stanley Kunitz:
Blake speaks more directly to us, anticipating the issues, conflicts, and anxieties of the modern world, than any of his contemporaries. It could be argued that he dared, in fact, to be the first modern poet. . . .
Above all, Blake teaches us that the imagination is a portion of the divine principle, that "Energy is Eternal Delight," and that "everything that lives is Holy." Human liberty and imagination have never been better served.

The Portable William Blake (Portable Library)

by William Blake

The Portable Blake contains the hermetic genius's most important works: Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience in their entirety; selections from his "prophetic books"—including The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Visions of the Daughters of Abion, America, The Book of Urizen, and The Four Zoas—and from other works of poetry and prose, as well as the complete drawings for The Book of Job.

Selected Poems of William Blake (Penguin Classics)

by William Blake

Writer and religious rebel, William Blake sowed the seeds of Romanticism in his innovative poems concerning faith and the vision that inspired him throughout his remarkable life. Whether describing his own spirituality, the innocence of youth, or the corruption caused by mankind, his writings depict a world in which spirits dominate and the mind is the gateway to Heaven. Presenting many of Blake’s major works in their complete texts, alongside extensive passages from such poems as "Jerusalem" and "The Gates of Paradise," this collection spans his entire poetic life, from the exquisite lyrics of Poetic Sketches to Songs of Innocence and Experience—a compelling exploration of good and evil. Together, they illuminate a self-made realm that has fascinated artists and poets as diverse as Wordsworth, Coleridge, Yeats, and Ginsberg. This is the perfect introduction to Blake’s unforgettable poetry.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

The Complete Poetry & Prose of William Blake

by William Golding, Harold Bloom, William Blake, David V. Erdman

Since its first publication in 1965, this edition has been widely hailed as the best available text of Blake's poetry and prose. Now revised, if includes up-to-date work on variants, chronology of poems and critical commentary by Harold Bloom.

An "Approved Edition" of the Center for Scholarly Editions of the Modern Language Association.

Songs of Innocence (Dover Fine Art, History of Art)

by William Blake

William Blake's innovations in engraving techniques brought about his brilliant synthesis of visual and poetic art and signaled the beginning of his famous "Illuminated Books," of which the Songs of Innocence was the first and most popular. Unfortunately, Blake's vision is generally known to the world in amputated form: because of the difficulty and expense of reproducing his original conception, most editions of Blake's work offer only the printed text, with no trace of the visual counterpart so essential to his "System."
This new, facsimile edition of the Songs of Innocence reproduces Blake's color plates in a fashion which the artist himself would have approved. The 31 plates — printed on facing pages which are the same size of Blake's own first edition — offer one of the more brightly colored versions of this significant volume, no two copies of which are the same. As a special aid to readers, a typographical reprint of the text of poems follows the plates. Such classic "songs" as "The Lamb" and "The Chimney Sweeper" are now accessible to all in the symbiotic union of poem and picture that is crucial to a total understating of Blake's mind and art.

Songs of Experience: Facsimile Reproduction with 26 Plates in Full Color (Dover Fine Art, History of Art)

by William Blake

One of Blake's most inspired creations, "The Tyger" mingles the lyric and mystical in an exquisite union. Now you can experience the beauty of this and other poems the way Blake intended them — with his own hand-colored illustrations giving them visual form.
This facsimile edition of one of Blake's celebrated "Illuminated Books" reproduces a collection of calligraphed poems, each enclosed in a masterful full-color illustration. Twenty-six plates reprinted from a rare 1826 etched edition include "London," "A Little Boy Lost," "Holy Thursday," The Voice of the Ancient Bard," and other immortal verse. To enhance reading, the texts of all the poems are transcribed separately, following the plates.
Dynamic designs and simplicity of language convey Blake's vision of mankind and his condemnation of a wealthy society insensitive to poverty and unhappiness. Moreover, its universal themes make Songs of Experience just as poignant and profound today. Lovers of literature and fine art will want to add this faithful, inexpensive facsimile of an immortal classic to their libraries.

Collected Poems

by Ellen Bryant Voigt, Paul Auster, Robert Lowell, Ted Hughes, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Mark Strand, William Blake, Jack Gilbert, Jane Kenyon, James Merrill, Philip Larkin, Galway Kinnell, W. H. Davies

All the poems of a great 20th-century poet.

From the astonishing debut Hawk in the Rain (1957) to Birthday Letters (1998), Ted Hughes was one of postwar literature's truly prodigious poets. This remarkable volume gathers all of his work, from his earliest poems (published only in journals) through the ground-breaking volumes Crow (1970), Gaudete(1977), and Tales from Ovid (1997). It includes poems Hughes composed for fine-press printers, poems he wrote as England's Poet Laureate, and those children's poems that he meant for adults as well. This omnium-gatherum of Hughes's work is animated throughout by a voice that, as Seamus Heaney remarked, was simply "longer and deeper and rougher" than those of his contemporaries.

Collected Poems

by Ellen Bryant Voigt, Paul Auster, Robert Lowell, Ted Hughes, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Mark Strand, William Blake, Jack Gilbert, Jane Kenyon, James Merrill, Philip Larkin, Galway Kinnell, W. H. Davies

“Careful, attentive, sometimes consoling, heartbreaking or plangent where no consolation can be found.” ―Stephanie Burt, New York Times Book Review

A monumental celebration of “one of the most significant poets writing today” (David Baker, Los Angeles Review of Books).
In eight extraordinary volumes spanning five decades, Ellen Bryant Voigt has created a body of work distinguished by its formal precision, rigorous intelligence, and meticulous observation of nature, history, and domestic life. From the subtly evocative images of Claiming Kin (1976) to the mosaic of sonnets and voices conjuring a prescient narrative of the 1918 influenza pandemic in Kyrie (1995) to fierce encounters with mortality in the National Book Award finalist Shadow of Heaven (2002) and the propulsive inventions of Headwaters (2013), the evolution of Voigt’s astonishing creative and technical mastery is on full display. This definitive collection showcases the brilliant career of “a quintessential American elegist” (Katy Didden, Kenyon Review). From “Apple Tree”

O my soul,
it is not a small thing,
to have made from three,
this one, this one life.

Collected Poems

by Ellen Bryant Voigt, Paul Auster, Robert Lowell, Ted Hughes, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Mark Strand, William Blake, Jack Gilbert, Jane Kenyon, James Merrill, Philip Larkin, Galway Kinnell, W. H. Davies

“One of the greatest American poets of her time.”—New York Times
Collected Poems features Edna St. Vincent Millay’s incisive and impassioned poetry and sonnets, as well as the poet’s last volume, Mine the Harvest, compiled and published in 1956 by her sister Norma Millay. Alongside Robert Frost, T.S. Eliot, Marianne Moore, and E. E. Cummings, Millay remains among the most celebrated poets of the early twentieth century for her uniquely lyrical explorations of love, individuality, and artistic expression.
Millay, winner in 1923 of the second annual Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, was a daring, versatile writer whose work includes plays, essays, short stories, and songs. She infused new life into traditional poetic forms, bringing hope to a generation of youth disillusioned by the political and social upheaval of the First World War. She ventured fearlessly beyond familiar poetic subjects to tackle political injustice, social discrimination, and women’s sexuality in her poems and prose.
Yet Millay’s poetry is still decisively modern in its message, and it continues to resonate with readers facing personal and moral issues that defy the test of time: romantic love, loss, betrayal, compassion for one another, social equality, patriotism, and the stewardship of the natural world.
This invaluable compendium of her work is not only an essential addition to any collection of the world’s most moving and memorable poetry but an unprecedented look into the life of Millay.
My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—
It gives a lovely light!
“First Fig” from A Few Figs from Thistles (1920)

Collected Poems

by Ellen Bryant Voigt, Paul Auster, Robert Lowell, Ted Hughes, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Mark Strand, William Blake, Jack Gilbert, Jane Kenyon, James Merrill, Philip Larkin, Galway Kinnell, W. H. Davies

Gathered in this volume readers will find more than fifty years of poems by the incomparable Jack Gilbert, from his Yale Younger Poets prize-winning volume to glorious late poems, including a section of previously uncollected work.

There is no one quite like Jack Gilbert in postwar American poetry. After garnering early acclaim with Views of Jeopardy (1962), he escaped to Europe and lived apart from the literary establishment, honing his uniquely fierce, declarative style, with its surprising abundance of feeling. He reappeared in our midst with Monolithos (1982) and then went underground again until The Great Fires (1994), which was eventually followed by Refusing Heaven (2005), a prizewinning volume of surpassing joy and sorrow, and the elegiac The Dance Most of All (2009). Whether his subject is his boyhood in working-class Pittsburgh, the women he has loved throughout his life, or the bittersweet losses we all face, Gilbert is by turns subtle and majestic: he steals up on the odd moment of grace; he rises to crescendos of emotion. At every turn, he illuminates the basic joys of everyday experience.

Now, for the first time, we have all of Jack Gilbert’s work in one essential volume: testament to a stunning career and to his place at the forefront of poetic achievement in our time.

Collected Poems

by Ellen Bryant Voigt, Paul Auster, Robert Lowell, Ted Hughes, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Mark Strand, William Blake, Jack Gilbert, Jane Kenyon, James Merrill, Philip Larkin, Galway Kinnell, W. H. Davies

One of the best-known and best-loved poets of the English-speaking world, Philip Larkin had only a small number of poems published during his lifetime. Collected Poems brings together not only all his books--The North Ship, The Less Deceived, The Whitsun Weddings, and High Windows--but also his uncollected poems from 1940 to 1984.

This new edition reflects Larkin's own ordering for his poems and is the first collection to present the body of his work with the organization he preferred. Preserving everything he published in his lifetime, the new Collected Poems is an indispensable contribution to the legacy of an icon of twentieth-century poetry.

Collected Poems

by Ellen Bryant Voigt, Paul Auster, Robert Lowell, Ted Hughes, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Mark Strand, William Blake, Jack Gilbert, Jane Kenyon, James Merrill, Philip Larkin, Galway Kinnell, W. H. Davies

Frank Bidart and David Gewanter have compiled the definitive edition of Robert Lowell's work, from his first, impossible-to-find collection, Land of Unlikeness; to the early triumph of Lord Weary's Castle, winner of the 1946 Pulitzer Prize; to the brilliant willfulness of his versions of poems by Sappho, Baudelaire, Rilke, Montale, and other masters in Imitations; to the late spontaneity of The Dolphin, winner of another Pulitzer Prize; to his last, most searching book, Day by Day. This volume also includes poems and translations never previously collected, and a selection of drafts that demonstrate the poet's constant drive to reimagine his work. Collected Poems at last offers readers the opportunity to take in, in its entirety, one of the great careers in twentieth-century poetry.

Collected Poems

by Ellen Bryant Voigt, Paul Auster, Robert Lowell, Ted Hughes, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Mark Strand, William Blake, Jack Gilbert, Jane Kenyon, James Merrill, Philip Larkin, Galway Kinnell, W. H. Davies

The publication of James Merrill's Collected Poems is a landmark in the history of modern American literature. His First Poems—its sophistication and virtuosity were recognized at once—appeared half a century ago. Over the next five decades, Merrill's range broadened and his voice took on its characteristic richness. In book after book, his urbanity and wit, his intriguing images and paradoxes, shone with a rare brilliance. As he once told an interviewer, he "looked for English in its billiard-table sense—words that have been set spinning against their own gravity." But beneath their surface glamour, his poems were driven by an audacious imagination that continually sought to deepen and refine our perspectives on experience. Among other roles, he was one of the supreme love poets of the twentieth century. In delicate lyric or complex narrative, this book abounds with what he once called his "chronicles of love and loss." Like Wallace Stevens and W. H. Auden before him, Merrill sought to quicken the pulse of a poem in surprising and compelling ways—ways, indeed, that changed how we came to see our own lives. Years ago, the critic Helen Vendler spoke for others when she wrote of Merrill, "The time eventually comes, in a good poet's career, when readers actively wait for his books: to know that someone out there is writing down your century, your generation, your language, your life . . . He has become one of our indispensable poets."

This book brings together a remarkable body of work in an authoritative edition. From Merrill's privately printed book, The Black Swan, published in 1946, to his posthumous collection, A Scattering of Salts, which appeared in 1995, all of the poems he published are included, except for juvenalia and his epic, The Changing Light at Sandover. In addition, twenty-one of his translations (from Apollinaire, Montale, and Cavafy, among others) and forty-four of his previously uncollected poems (including those written in the last year of his life) are gathered here for the first time.

Collected Poems in the first volume in a series that will present all of James Merrill's work—his novels and plays, and his collected prose. Together, these volumes will testify to a monumental career that distinguished American literature in the late twentieth century and will continue to inspire readers and writers for years to come.

From the Hardcover edition.

Collected Poems

by Ellen Bryant Voigt, Paul Auster, Robert Lowell, Ted Hughes, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Mark Strand, William Blake, Jack Gilbert, Jane Kenyon, James Merrill, Philip Larkin, Galway Kinnell, W. H. Davies

Longlisted for the 2014 National Book Award

Gathered here is a half century’s magnificent work by the former poet laureate of the United States and Pulitzer Prize winner whose haunting and exemplary style has influenced an entire generation of American poets.

Beginning with the limited-edition volume Sleeping with One Eye Open, published in 1964, Mark Strand was hailed as a poet of piercing originality and elegance, and in the ensuing decades he has not swerved from his vision of how a poem should be shaped and what it should deliver. As he entered the middle period of his career, with volumes such as The Continuous Life (1990), Strand was already well-known for his ability to capture the subtle music of consciousness, and for creating painterly physical landscapes that could answer to the inner self: “And here the dark infinitive to feel, / Which would endure and have the earth be still / And the star-strewn night pour down the mountains / Into the hissing fields and silent towns.” In his later work, from Blizzard of One (1998) which won the Pulitzer Prize, through the sly, provocative riddles of his recent Almost Invisible (2012), Strand has delighted in reminding us that there is no poet quite like him for a dose of dark wit that turns out to be deep wisdom and self-deprecation. He has given voice to our collective imagination with a grandeur and comic honesty worthy of his great Knopf forebear Wallace Stevens. With this volume, we celebrate his canonical work.

Collected Poems

by Ellen Bryant Voigt, Paul Auster, Robert Lowell, Ted Hughes, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Mark Strand, William Blake, Jack Gilbert, Jane Kenyon, James Merrill, Philip Larkin, Galway Kinnell, W. H. Davies

William Blake is a poet without parallel, who remains a source of wisdom and inspiration to countless individuals throughout the world.
This selection was commissioned in 1905 by the firm of George Routledge from W.B. Yeats, who had previously been one of the pioneer editors of Blake's prophetic books. Yeats, one of the few poets whose work could be compared with that of Blake, prepared a unique selection of his poetic and prose writings. There is no better way to encounter the work of one poetic genius than as it is presented by another, and Yeats understood Blake in a way few others did.

Collected Poems

by Ellen Bryant Voigt, Paul Auster, Robert Lowell, Ted Hughes, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Mark Strand, William Blake, Jack Gilbert, Jane Kenyon, James Merrill, Philip Larkin, Galway Kinnell, W. H. Davies

A compelling anthology of poetry, translations, and composition notes by the author of The Book of Illusions features selections from Spokes, Wall Writing, Disappearances, Effigies, White Spaces, and other works, along with biographical details and the author's own thoughts on his writing.

Collected Poems

by Ellen Bryant Voigt, Paul Auster, Robert Lowell, Ted Hughes, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Mark Strand, William Blake, Jack Gilbert, Jane Kenyon, James Merrill, Philip Larkin, Galway Kinnell, W. H. Davies

None

Collected Poems

by Ellen Bryant Voigt, Paul Auster, Robert Lowell, Ted Hughes, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Mark Strand, William Blake, Jack Gilbert, Jane Kenyon, James Merrill, Philip Larkin, Galway Kinnell, W. H. Davies

The definitive collection of poems from Pulitzer Prize winner, MacArthur Fellow, and National Book Award winner Galway Kinnell.

“It’s the poet’s job to figure out what’s happening within oneself, to figure out the connection between the self and the world, and to get it down in words that have a certain shape, that have a chance of lasting.” —Galway Kinnell
This long-awaited volume brings together for the first time the life’s work of a major American voice.

In a remarkable generation of poets, Galway Kinnell was an acknowledged, true master. From the book-length poem memorializing the grit, beauty, and swarming assertion of immigrant life along a lower Manhattan avenue, to searing poems of human conflict and war, to incandescent reflections on love, family, and the natural world—including "Blackberry Eating,” "St. Francis and the Sow," and “After Making Love We Hear Footsteps”—to the unflinchingly introspective poems of his later life, Kinnell’s work lastingly shaped the consciousness of his age.

Spanning 65 years of intense, inspired creativity, this volume, with its inclusion of previously uncollected poems, is the essential collection for old and new devotees of a “poet of the rarest ability . . . who can flesh out music, raise the spirits, and break the heart.” (Boston Globe)

Collected Poems

by Ellen Bryant Voigt, Paul Auster, Robert Lowell, Ted Hughes, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Mark Strand, William Blake, Jack Gilbert, Jane Kenyon, James Merrill, Philip Larkin, Galway Kinnell, W. H. Davies

The life’s work of “one of the true master poets of his generation,”* whose poetry helped shape the consciousness of an age

For Galway Kinnell, it was “the poet’s job to figure out what’s happening within oneself, to figure out the connection between the self and the world, and to get it down in words that have a lasting shape, that have a chance of lasting.” This comprehensive volume includes “The Avenue Bearing the Initial of Christ into the New World,” Kinnell’s stunning poem of immigrant life on the Lower East Side of New York, the incantatory book-length poem The Book of Nightmares, the searing evocation of Hiroshima in “The Fundamental Project of Technology,” the iconic themes of his middle years—eros, family, the natural world (“After Making Love We Hear Footsteps,” “The Bear,” “Saint Francis and the Sow,” “Blackberry Eating”)—and the unflinchingly introspective work of his later years. Spanning six decades, this is the essential collection for old and new devotees of “a poet of the rarest ability . . . who can flesh out music, raise the spirits, and break the heart.”**

*New York Times
**Boston Globe

Collected Poems

by Ellen Bryant Voigt, Paul Auster, Robert Lowell, Ted Hughes, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Mark Strand, William Blake, Jack Gilbert, Jane Kenyon, James Merrill, Philip Larkin, Galway Kinnell, W. H. Davies

Jane Kenyon is considered one of America's best contemporary poets. Her previous collection, Otherwise: New & Selected Poems, published just after her death in 1995, has been a favorite among readers, with over 60,000 copies in print, and is a contemporary classic.
Now at the ten-year anniversary of her death, Kenyon's Collected Poems assembles all of her published poetry in one book. Included here are the complete poems found in her four previous volumes--From Room to Room, The Boat of Quiet Hours, Let Evening Come, and Constance--as well as the poems that appear in her posthumous volumes Otherwise and A Hundred White Daffodils, four poems never before published in book form, and her translations in Twenty Poems of Anna Akhmatova.

Collected Poems

by Ellen Bryant Voigt, Paul Auster, Robert Lowell, Ted Hughes, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Mark Strand, William Blake, Jack Gilbert, Jane Kenyon, James Merrill, Philip Larkin, Galway Kinnell, W. H. Davies

All of Jane Kenyon's published poems gathered in one definitive collection, now in paperback

Yes, long shadows go out
from the bales; and yes, the soul
must part from the body:
what else could it do?
―from "Twilight: After Haying"

Jane Kenyon is one of America's most prized contemporary poets. Her previous collection, Otherwise: New and Selected Poems, published just after her death in 1995, has been a favorite among readers, with more than 80,000 copies in print, and is a contemporary classic.

Collected Poems assembles all of Kenyon's published poetry in one book. Included here are the complete poems found in her four previous volumes―From Room to Room, The Boat of Quiet Hours, Let Evening Come, and Constance―as well as the poems that appear in her posthumous volumes Otherwise and A Hundred White Daffodils, four poems never before published in book form, and her translations in Twenty Poems of Anna Akhmatova.

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: A Facsimile in Full Color (Dover Fine Art, History of Art)

by William Blake

Once regarded as a brilliant eccentric whose works skirted the outer fringes of English art and literature, William Blake (1757–1827) is today recognized as a major poet, a profound thinker, and one of the most original and exciting English artists. Nowhere is his glorious poetic and pictorial legacy more evident than in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, which many consider his most inspired and original work.
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is both a humorous satire on religion and morality and a work that concisely expresses Blake's essential wisdom and philosophy, much of it revealed in the 70 aphorisms of his "Proverbs of Hell." This beautiful edition, reproduced from a rare facsimile, invites readers to enjoy the rich character of Blake's own hand-printed text along with his deeply stirring illustrations, reproduced on 27 full-color plates. A typeset transcription of the text is included.

English Romantic Poetry: An Anthology (Dover Thrift Editions)

by William Blake, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Byron

Encompassing a broad range of subjects, styles, and moods, English poetry of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries is generally classified under the term "Romantic," suggesting an emphasis on imagination and individual experience, as well as a preoccupation with such theme as nature, death, and the supernatural.
This volume contains a rich selection of poems by England's six greatest poets: William Blake (24 poems, including "The Tyger" and "Auguries of Innocence"), William Wordsworth (27 poems, including "Ode: Intimations of Immortality" and "I wandered lonely as a cloud"), Samuel Taylor Coleridge (10 poems, including "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and "Kubla Khan"), Lord Byron (16 poems, including "The Prisoner of Chillon" and selections from Don Juan and Childe Harold's Pilgrimage), Percy Bysshe Shelley (24 poems, including "Ode to the West Wind" and "Adonis"), John Keats (22 poems, including all the great odes, "Isabella," and "The Eve of St. Agnes").
For this edition, Stanley Appelbaum has provided a concise Introduction to the Romantic period and brief commentaries on the poets represented. The result is a carefully selected anthology that will be welcomed by lovers of poetry, students, and teachers alike.

Blake Art Tattoos (Dover Tattoos)

by William Blake

One of the great English poets and painters of the Romantic period, William Blake (1757–1827) produced works that are among the most mystical, powerful, and expressive in the history of art. For this unique tattoo collection, Marty Noble has adapted details from four of the artist's finest illustrations, including The Ancient of Days, Job's Sons and Daughters Destroyed, and two images from Blake's Book of Urizen. Admirers of Blake and devotees of fine art will take special pleasure in displaying these unusual examples of body art.
Original Dover (2002) publication.

William Blake: The Complete Illuminated Books

by William Blake

"If you know Blake's poems you're getting only half―or rather none of―the picture."―The New York Times In his Illuminated Books, William Blake combined text and imagery on a single page in a way that had not been done since the Middle Ages. For Blake, religion and politics, intellect and emotion, mind and body were both unified and in conflict with each other: his work is expressive of his personal mythology, and his methods of conveying it were integral to its meaning. There is no comparison with reading books such as Jerusalem, America, and Songs of Innocence and of Experience in Blake's own medium, infused with his sublime and exhilarating colors. Tiny figures and forms dance among the lines of the text, flames appear to burn up the page, and dense passages of Biblical-sounding text are brought to a jarring halt by startling images of death, destruction, and liberation. Blake's hope that his books would obtain wide circulation was unfulfilled: some exist only in unique copies and none was printed in more than very small numbers. Now, for the first time, the plates from the William Blake Trust's Collected Edition have been brought together in a single volume, with transcripts of the texts and an introduction by the noted scholar David Bindman.

Includes: Jerusalem; Songs of Innocence and of Experience; All Religions are One; There is No Natural Religion; The Book of Thel; The Marriage of Heaven and Hell; Visions of the Daughters of Albion; America a Prophecy; Europe a Prophecy; The Song of Los Milton a Poem; The Ghost of Abel; On Homers Poetry [and] On Virgil; Laocoon; The First Book of Urizen; The Book of Ahania; The Book of Los. 400 color illustrations

Blake: Poems (Everyman's Library Pocket Poets Series)

by William Blake

These Everyman's Library Pocket Poets hardcover editions are popular for their compact size and reasonable price which do not compromise content. Poems: Blake contains a full selection of Blake's work, including Songs of Innocence, Songs of Experience, poems from Blake's Ms. book, poems from The Prophetic Books, and an index of first lines.

Poetry for Young People: William Blake

by William Blake

With its combination of poetic brilliance and exquisite art, the Poetry for Young People series has won the admiration of critics, educators, children, and parents. Every breathtaking volume in this acclaimed, bestselling collection features magnificent full-color illustrations that enhance each verse, and a renowned scholar’s guidance to help children understand and love poetry. There’s an introduction to each poem, full annotations that define unfamiliar vocabulary, and fascinating biographical information.The star of this superb new entry in the series is 18th century artist and poet William Blake, who wrote his mystical, spirit-filled verses for children and adults alike. Best known for his masterpieces ?Songs of Innocence” and ?Songs of Experience”?both excerpted here?he speaks of love, hate, anguish, relief and above all, mercy and the divine image that comforts us. Blake often uses simple, lovely language that young readers can appreciate, as well as animal metaphors; his poems sometimes even come in pairs, with the same subjects seen from different points of view. Professor John Maynard (Poetry for Young People: Alfred Lord Tennyson) provides the excellent biography and notes. Artist Alessandra Cimatoribus contributes richly colored and magically rendered paintings that fully capture the gentleness of ?The Lamb,” the sparkling deep blue sky and angels of ?Night,” and ?The Tyger,” eyes glistening and sharp teeth bared?burning bright.

Poems (Vintage Classics)

by William Blake

William Blake is one of England’s most fascinating writers; he was not only a groundbreaking poet, but also a painter, engraver, radical, and mystic. Although Blake was dismissed as an eccentric by his contemporaries, his powerful and richly symbolic poetry has been a fertile source of inspiration to the many writers and artists who have followed in his footsteps. In this collection Patti Smith brings together her personal favorites of Blake’s poems, including the complete Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, to give a singular picture of this unique genius, whom she calls in her moving introduction “the spiritual ancestor” of generations of poets.

Visions of the Daughters of Albion

by William Blake

William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age. His prophetic poetry has been said to form "what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in the English language". His visual artistry led one contemporary art critic to proclaim him "far and away the greatest artist Britain has ever produced". While Blake had a significant role to play in the art and poetry of figures such as Rossetti, it was during the Modernist period that this work began to influence a wider set of writers and artists. William Butler Yeats, who edited an edition of Blake's collected works in 1893, drew on him for poetic and philosophical ideas, while British surrealist art in particular drew on Blake's conceptions of non-mimetic, visionary practice in the painting of artists such as Paul Nash and Graham Sutherland. His poetry came into use by a number of British classical composers such as Benjamin Britten and Ralph Vaughan Williams, who set his works. Blake's thoughts on human nature greatly anticipate and parallel the thinking of the psychoanalyst Carl Jung. In Jung's own words: "Blake a tantalizing study, since he compiled a lot of half or undigested knowledge in his fantasies. According to my ideas they are an artistic production rather than an authentic representation of unconscious processes." Similarly, although less popularly, Diana Hume George claimed that Blake can be seen as a precursor to the ideas of Sigmund Freud.

Cat Poetry

by Emily Dickinson, William Blake, William Wordsworth, W. B. Yeats

None

Songs of Innocence and of Experience: The Original Full-Color Manuscript with Accompanying Text (Arcturus Ornate Classics)

by William Blake

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright, In the forest of the night, What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

This elegant hardback pocket edition of Songs of Innocence & of Experience reproduces the complete collection in its original illuminated manuscript form, with Blake's full-color illustrations and decorative borders surrounding the poems. For clarity, each poem is faced by a transcription of the poem and the whole collection is prefaced by an introduction to William Blake and to this particular work.

Part of the Arcturus Ornate Classics series, this edition is luxurious presented with gold cover accents, gilded page edges, ivory pages and patterned endpapers, creating a stylish way to enjoy this classic poetic work.

ABOUT THE SERIES: Arcturus Ornate Classics are beautifully bound editions of iconic literary works across history. These compact, foil-embossed hardbacks are printed using deluxe ivory paper and make the perfect gift.

The Romantic Poets (Word Cloud Classics)

by William Blake, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, George Gordon Byron

Feelings come alive through the words of the Romantic poets.

Romanticism gained traction in the late 1700s as writers moved away from the intellectualism of the Enlightenment and toward more emotional and natural themes. The major works of the movement’s six most famous poets—William Wordsworth, George Gordon Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, and William Blake—are represented in this handsome Word Cloud Classics volume, The Romantic Poets. One of the largest and most influential artistic movements in history, Romanticism valued intuition and pastoralism, and its themes are well represented in the verse of its stars.

Songs of Innocence

by William Blake

An exquisite edition of William Blake’s Songs of Innocence, accompanied by an introduction to his life and work.
One of the most important books of illustrated poetry in English literature, William Blake’s Songs of Innocence was meticulously relief-etched, printed, and colored in 1789. A unique work of composite art, Song of Innocence contains some of Blake’s most enduring and popular poems, delicately illustrated with his exquisite and idiosyncratic designs.
This beautiful book reproduces, in color, the twenty-seven pages of the Bodleian Library’s copy of Songs of Innocence together with page-facing transcriptions and an introduction on Blake, his life and work, his illuminated printing process, and the genre and continuing influence of Songs of Innocence. Including the much-loved “Nurse’s Song,” “Little Boy Lost,” and “Spring,” Blake’s captivating lyrics celebrate childhood as a period of harmony and spontaneity, where the defining traits of the world are compassion, empathy, and love.

William Blake: Poetical Sketches

by William Blake

Poetical Sketches was the first and only volume of William Blake’s poetry printed in his lifetime. Long unavailable in its entirety as a single volume, this edition is reproduced from an extremely rare copy of the original 1783 book that contains corrections to the printed text handwritten by Blake himself. The writings range from work written in Blake’s twelfth year up to that of his twentieth and are all stamped with his unique vision. This beautiful book also contains an introduction by Robin Hamlyn, who considers the history of the book itself and the place it has in Blake’s pursuit of fame.

Romantic Poets (Chiltern Classic)

by William Blake, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats, William Wordsworth, Lord George Gordon Byron, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Chiltern Publishing creates the most beautiful editions of the World’s finest literature.
Your favorite classics in a way you have never seen them before; the tactile layers, fine details and beautiful colors of these remarkable covers make these books feel extra special and look striking on any shelf.
The Literary World of the nineteenth century was lit up by six of England's Greatest Poets. Wordsworth, Coleridge and Blake were in the vanguard of the early Romantic movement that broke from the past, emphasizing the individual and personal, embracing imagination over reason. Romanticism's second wave saw Byron, Shelley and Keats come to the fore, rebels who breathed new life into the movement which spawned some of the best poetry in English Literature.

The Complete Poems (Penguin Classics)

by William Blake

One of the great English Romantic poets, William Blake was also an artist, mystic, and visionary. His work ranges from the deceptively simple and lyrical Songs of Innocence and their counterpoint Experience—which juxtapose poems such as "The Lamb" and "The Tyger," and "The Blossom" and "The Sick Rose"—to highly elaborate, apocalyptic works, such as The Four Zoas, Milton and Jerusalem. Throughout his life Blake drew on a rich heritage of philosophy, religion and myth, to create a poetic worlds illuminated by his spiritual and revolutionary beliefs that have fascinated, intrigued and enchanted readers for generations.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

William Blake

by William Blake

This stylish reissue of Blake’s timeless work is sumptuously packaged in burnt-orange casing with gold sprayed edges, which allude to the treasures within.

Songs of Innocence and of Experience is a rare and wonderful book, its seeming simplicity belying its visionary wisdom. Internationally recognised as a masterpiece of English literature, it also occupies a key position in the history of western art. This unique edition of the work allows Blake to communicate with his readers as he intended, reproducing Blake's own illumination and lettering from the finest existing example of the original work. In this way, readers can experience the mystery and beauty of Blake's poems as he first created them, discovering for themselves the intricate web of symbol and meaning that connects word and image. Each poem is accompanied by a literal transcription, and the volume is introduced by the renowned historian and critic, Richard Holmes. This beautiful edition of The Songs of Innocence and Experience will be essential for those familiar with Blake's work, but also offers an ideal way into his visionary world for those encountering Blake for the first time.

Cover may vary.

William Blake Selected Poems

by William Blake

"To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour"

William Blake wrote some of the most moving and memorable verse in the English language. Deeply committed to visionary and imaginative experience, yet also fiercely engaged with the turbulent politics of his era, he is now recognised as a major contributor to the Romantic Movement.

This edition presents Blake's poems in their literary categories and genres to which they belong: his much-loved lyrics, ballads, comic and satirical verse, descriptive and discursive poems, verse epistles, and, finally, his remarkable 'prophetic' poems, including the whole of his two diffuse epics, Milton and Jerusalem.

Blake's poetry is intellectually challenging as well as formally inventive, and this edition has a substantial critical introduction which places his ideas in the contemporary context of the Enlightenment and the artistic reaction against its key assumptions.

Blake's Poetry and Designs (Norton Critical Editions)

by William Blake

The Second Edition of this revered Norton Critical Edition is the most comprehensive introduction to Blake’s poetry and thought available. In addition to a broad selection of the poems, the volume includes over 100 images (16 in color), emphasizing the centrality of pictorial representations to Blake’s verse. Biographical context is provided through dozens of excerpts from Blake’s notebook, letters, marginalia, and other writings. “Criticism” offers twenty wide-ranging commentaries by writers from Blake’s contemporaries to present-day critics, among them Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Northrop Frye, Allen Ginsberg, Morris Eaves, Harold Bloom, Alicia Ostriker, John Mee, Saree Makdisi, and Julia Wright. A section on Textual Technicalities, a Chronology of Blake’s life and work, a Selected Bibliography, and an Index of Titles and First Lines are also included.

A Novel Journal: William Blake (Compact)

by William Blake

Create your own Romantic movement in an inspiring journal with William Blake.

If you're looking for a new book in which to record your thoughts, lists, and more, you're in luck! Canterbury Classics, known for publishing fine works of literature, has released their next set of writing journals for your personal literary pleasure! The imaginative poems of William Blake create the lines throughout this notebook in tiny print, so you can pen your words right next to those of one of the greatest poets of all time. With heat-burnished Svepa covers featuring a clever quote, illustrated endpapers, foil stamping, colored edges, and an elastic band to hold it all together, you'll want to collect the whole Novel Journal series.

Songs of Innocence and of Experience

by William Blake

William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience includes some of the visionary poet’s finest and best-loved poems such as 'The Lamb', 'The Chimney-Sweeper' and 'The Tiger'.

Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition has a foreword by Peter Harness.

Blake’s work is instantly recognisable from its flamboyance and inventiveness. This gorgeous edition contains stunning reproductions of the fifty-four plates of the poems and illustrations together which Blake etched himself and coloured by hand. Each has the poem printed on the facing page. Whilst Songs of Innocencecaptures the innocence of childhood, Songs of Experience is its contrary sequel.

Songs of Innocence and Experience: Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul, 1789-1794 (Oxford Paperbacks)

by William Blake

Here is a beautifully illustrated edition of Blake's classic poems. The text of each poem is given in letterpress on the page facing the color plate, and a brief commentary by Sir Geoffrey Keynes on each poem follows. It is printed on paper especially manufactured to match the tint of that
used by Blake.

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (Oxford Paperbacks)

by William Blake

These two collections of Blake's finest and best-loved poems--printed on vellum--offer the text of each poem in letterpress on the page facing a beautiful color reproduction of the design Blake created to illustrate the particular poem.

William Blake 2020 Wall Calendar

by William Blake

Now considered a seminal poet, painter, and engraver of the Romantic Age, William Blake (British, 1757–1827) achieved recognition as a poet during his lifetime but was not widely known as an artist. Despite having followed a rather conventional path to an art career (drawing school, apprenticeship to an engraver, and subsequent formal art study at the Royal Academy in London), Blake was an original thinker and an artistic innovator. He invented relief etching (which he called illuminated printing), a process that allowed the integration and handcolouring of text and illustration within the same printed image. Using this new printing technique he self-published illuminated books of his poetry and art. Blake’s dual significance to his era as both writer and artist, as well as his influence on future generations, continues to capture the attention of scholars and laypeople to this day. All of Pomegranate’s calendars are printed with soy-based inks on FSC® certified paper, which means the paper has been certified by the Forest Stewardship Council® and manufactured by an FSC certified printer. FSC certification promotes responsible forest management by ensuring that forestry practices are environmentally responsible, socially equitable, and economically viable. FSC license code FSC N001864.

Blake's Songs Of Innocence And Of Experience

by William Blake

This stylish reissue of Blake’s timeless work is sumptuously packaged in burnt-orange casing with gold sprayed edges, which allude to the treasures within.

Songs of Innocence and of Experience is a rare and wonderful book, its seeming simplicity belying its visionary wisdom. Internationally recognised as a masterpiece of English literature, it also occupies a key position in the history of western art. This unique edition of the work allows Blake to communicate with his readers as he intended, reproducing Blake's own illumination and lettering from the finest existing example of the original work. In this way, readers can experience the mystery and beauty of Blake's poems as he first created them, discovering for themselves the intricate web of symbol and meaning that connects word and image. Each poem is accompanied by a literal transcription, and the volume is introduced by the renowned historian and critic, Richard Holmes. This beautiful edition of The Songs of Innocence and Experience will be essential for those familiar with Blake's work, but also offers an ideal way into his visionary world for those encountering Blake for the first time.

Cover may vary.

Selected Poetry (Oxford World's Classics)

by William Blake

The Oxford Poetry Library series offers compact and fully annotated editions of some of the most important and best-loved English poets. Drawing on the acclaimed texts of the Oxford Authors series, these collections provide a generous selection of the verse of figures as diverse as Andrew Marvell and William Blake, John Keats and Thomas Hardy. Ideal for anyone interested in the eloquently wrought observations and thoughts of some of the English language's greatest writers, The Oxford Poetry Library should find a welcome place on the bookshelves of all lovers of literature.
Beginning his career as an engraver, it was not until his thirties that William Blake distinguished himself as a poet. This new edition of Blake's verse, presented in hronological order, encompasses Blake's entire career, from is early Poetical Sketches and There is No Natural eligion through his best known work Songs of Innocence, part of his beautiful series of poetry in lyric and blank verse, to his later works Jerusalem and The Everlasting Gospel. Representing the full range of Blake's accomplishements as a poet, this outstanding volume highlights the extraordinarily diverse achievements of his remarkable poetic oeuvre.

About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

by William Blake

Among the beautiful and striking illuminated books etched and printed by William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell stands out. Written in 1790 at the beginning of the French Revolution, it represents Blake's first attempt to create a new system of art, poetry and philosophy, declaring himself on the side of the devils in a world that was being turned upside down. While perhaps lesser known than his Songs of Innocence and of Experience, it has strong echoes throughout pop culture, and is arguably more influential on later generations of writers, thinkers and even musicians, from Aldous Huxley drawing on it as a key text to opening the doors of perception, which in turn gave The Doors their name, through to figures as diverse as Salman Rushdie, Benjamin Britten, Olga Tokarczuk and Keith Haring.

Blake's writing and art immediately draws the reader into a fantastical and surrealist landscape, where the protagonist converses with angels who have thrown their lot in with revolutionary hell, or chats with prophets and devils about the nature of God, the universe and everything.

?The gloriously illustrated edition, which opens with a poem, and takes the form of prose thereafter, is both a spirited satire on religion and morality, and expresses Blake's essential wisdom and philosophy. Produced as a beautiful facsimile, with a new, illuminating introduction, this is a special and thought-provoking gift book.