GILCHRIST’S IMPORTANT LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE, WITH 16 PRINTS FROM BLAKE’S ORIGINAL ELECTROTYPE PLATES

(BLAKE, William) GILCHRIST, Alexander. Life of William Blake, "Pictor Ignotus." London: Macmillan, 1880. Two volumes. Octavo, original elaborate pictorial blue cloth gilt, custom slipcase. $2500.

Preferred second edition of this important early biography, profusely illustrated with photolithographic plates after Blake, frontispiece portrait and folding frontispiece of the Canterbury pilgrims. With three prints taken from original woodblocks and 16 impressions from Blake’s original electrotype plates. In beautiful elaborate publisher's gilt binding.

"In a visit to London, a sight of some of Blake's illustrations of the Book of Job decided Alexander Gilchrist to undertake a life of the artist. He had previously only known the illustrations to Blair's 'Grave' and Allan Cunningham's life of the artist. He now resolved to write a full life of Blake" (DNB). Following Gilchrist's untimely death in 1861 from scarlet fever, the remaining work was completed by his wife Anne, with the editorial assistance of the brothers Dante Gabriel and William Michael Rossetti. It features numerous illustrations from Blake's works, mostly reproduced through photolithography or in facsimile, with three prints, however, made from original woodblocks and with the 16 illustrations of the "Songs" pulled from the original electrotypes of the copperplates. This edition also includes a body of Blake's poetry and prose selected by Dante Rossetti, and an annotated catalogue of his pictorial works. Among the poems in that first edition are 29 previously unpublished pieces, all taken from a manuscript notebook of Blake's, purchased by Rossetti in 1847. One of these obscure poems, "Broken Love," inspired Rossetti to exclaim, "never perhaps have the agony and perversity of sundered affection been more powerfully expressed." This second edition is preferred over the 1865 first edition because of the superior quality of its plates. Bentley 1680A. Bookplates.

Fine condition.