Blake, William | Illustrations for Edward Young's Night Thoughts

Blake, William

Edward Young. The Complaint, and the Consolation; or, Night Thoughts. London: R. Noble for R. Edwards, 1797

Folio (428 x 318 mm, uncut). 43 engraved pictorial border illustrations by and after William Blake; some illustrations shaved (as usual), without the "explanation of engravings" leaf (as often), scattered marginal soiling. Contemporary vellum over boards, spine gilt; front cover bowed, lightly soiled.

Sir Geoffrey Keynes termed the Blake's illustrations "splendid examples of plain line engraving done by an artist whose creative energy sought to burst through the limitations of his craft." "

Blake made 537 drawings around pages of the first edition of Young's poems, inlaid in album sheets measuring 21 x 16 inches. He chose forty-three of these for engraving in what was intended to be a first installment of the Night Thoughts. "Perhaps baffled by the novelty of Blake's interpretations, the public was not receptive, and the book remains a remarkable fragment" (Ray).

REFERENCES

Bentley, Blake Books 515; Ray, The Illustrator and the Book in England 3

PROVENANCE

The Fermor-Hesketh Library at Easton Neston (armorial bookplate of Sir Thomas Hesketh, Bart., & Easton Neston press-label 33/G; Sotheby's London, 15 December 1999, lot 60)