1880 The Life of William Blake

Description

Decorative Binding, Illustrated, Publishers' Original Binding

The two volume second edition of this work. First published in 1863, this second edition is expanded, and is generally regarded as more desirable than the first edition, in part due to the binding.

Volume I illustrated with fifty-six vignette, full page and mounted illustrations, with volume II illustrated with forty-one full plates and vignettes, including a number of prints from electrotypes made from the original copperplates of 'Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience', and Blake's Virgil woodcuts. Collated, complete.

Retaining the original half titles.

Alexander Gilchrist was an English author, known chiefly as a biographer for William Etty and William Blake.

The work is considered the standard reference work on Blake, with Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his brother William Michael Rossetti both offering contributions. Gilchrist spent many years compiling the material and interviewing Blake's surviving friends, although the work was originally left incomplete following Gilchrist's sudden death from Scarlet Fever in 1861. The work was first published two years later, having been complete by his wife Anne Gilchrist.