Customer Reviews

Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A very high-quality hardback edition, with thick paper, sewn binding, and fine, full-size reproductions of Blake's illustrations from the excellent Cambridge originals. Originals vary a good deal; compare these with the muddy ones used in the Oxford edition. Each illustration faces the associated poem, the only sensible layout, but something the Oxford edition does not do, for some reason. The introductory notes by Richard Holmes are brief, but extremely good.

All that's lacking are detailed explanatory notes for the individual poems, but those are available on web and elsewhere, and they aren't much needed for these poems in any case.

This is actually a nice little book, but if you're looking for a quality hardcover version with beautiful reproductions of Blake's paintings, you might want to look somewhere else. The images are blurry and underwhelming. I bought this as a gift, and now I'm thinking of looking for another hardcover version that has better quality images.

I had a hard time deciding what Blake book to get that had the "Songs of Innocence and Experience" with his plate illustrations, but after receiving this book I was very happy. It is somewhat small, but I did not find this to affect the quality at all. I also like the layout-illustration on right page with corresponding poem on the left.

Enjoyed the content, but the book appears to have been cheaply printed. It took away from the beauty of Blake's poetry.