"THE VOICE OF ONE CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS": FINE TRIANON PRESS LIMITED FACSIMILE EDITION OF ONE OF WILLIAM BLAKE'S FIRST ILLUMINATED BOOKS, ALL RELIGIONS ARE ONE
BLAKE, William. All Religions Are One [facsimile]. (London: The Trianon Press, for the William Blake Trust, 1970). Quarto, original half green morocco, marbled boards; housed together in publisher's matching marbled slipcase. $750.
Fine Trianon Press limited edition facsimile of one of William Blake's first illuminated books, number 509 of 600 copies (from a total edition of only 662) on Arches paper, finely reproducing in color the ten leaves of Blake's pioneering little volume. Printed for The William Blake Trust from the copy at the Huntington Library, completed with the title page in the collection of Geoffrey Keynes. With bibliographical note by Blake expert Geoffrey Keynes.
"William Blake's early tractate, All Religions Are One, consists of ten small etched plates averaging in size only about 5.5 by 4 cm… There is a well known anecdote of how Blake, while in doubt concerning the technique by which he was to produce his first book of illuminated printing, received instruction from a vision of his young brother, Robert, who had died in February 1787" (Keynes, "Bibliographical Statement"). "A combination of words and pictures soon followed: All Religions are One and There is No Natural Religion, both of 1788, are Blake's first 'Illuminated Books', as he called his new genre in 1793. These aphoristic tractates reject rationalist doctrines and welcome the imaginative truths of revealed religions which were, in Blake's view, one with artistic expression" (ODNB). "The two tiny tractates, There Is No Natural Religion and All Religions Are One, etched about 1788, show the impress of Boehme, their form being probably suggested by Lavater's Aphorisms" (Wilson, The Life of William Blake, 47-48). This is one of 600 printed on Arches paper made to match the paper used by Blake and bound in half morocco, from a total edition of 662 copies. With publisher's bifolio prospectus laid in. Bentley, Blake Books 5. Bookplate.
Spine gently toned; fine condition.