The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (Oxford Paperbacks) [Facsimile] [Paperback]

William Blake (Author), Sir Geoffrey Keynes (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0192811673 | ISBN-13: 978-0192811677 | Publication Date: October 30, 1975 | Edition: Facsimile edition

These two collections of Blake's finest and best-loved poems--printed on vellum--offer the text of each poem in letterpress on the page facing a beautiful color reproduction of the design Blake created to illustrate the particular poem.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“A leading American Blake scholar once described the prospect of editing The Marriage of Heaven and Hell as ‘a swamp filled with gators;’ Michael Phillips has navigated his way with great skill through the problems of chronology, textual unity, technique, contemporary context and significance of Blake''s strikingly witty, sardonic, quirky, cryptic product of his unique combination of text and illustration in his illuminated books. As well as the facsimile of Copy B, one of the earliest of the nine known copies of the book, there are twenty-one valuable supplementary color plates of comparable pages from other copies, including a full run of Plate 14 as it occurs in the nine copies produced between 1793 to the year of his death, 1827. The detailed commentary discusses both text and illustrations, and in the case of the illustrations is most helpfully accompanied by appropriate details from Blake''s designs.” — Martin Butlin, editor of The Complete Paintings and Drawings of William Blake

(Martin Butlin )

“This edition of one of Blake’s most potent and provocative books will give great pleasure both to Blake enthusiasts and to those new to his work.”—Tracy Chevalier

 

(Tracy Chevalier )

“This is an excellent scholarly edition of one of Blake’s most fascinating works, likely to become the defining text for generations to come. No one knows as much about Blake’s work in this period as Michael Phillips and he uses his knowledge of the text, its context, and Blake’s printing techniques to open up the question of what Blake thought he was doing with The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.” —John Mee

(John Mee ) --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

About the Author

William Blake (1757-1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker.

Product Details

• Paperback: 82 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; Facsimile edition edition (October 30, 1975)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0192811673
• ISBN-13: 978-0192811677
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #189,695 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Please disregard most of the other reviews of this product..., July 19, 2011

By 

James Rovira "JR" (Columbus, OH, US) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (Hardcover)

Please disregard some of the other reviews of this product as they have been transferred by Amazon.com to this product when they were written for another product -- no fault of the reviewers. Amazon.com does not currently recognize the need for different reviews of different editions of the same work. This review is of the edition of William Blake's Marriage of Heaven and Hell published by U Chicago Press (2011) for the Bodelian library and edited by Michael Phillips. Some of these other reviews really need to be deleted as they are completely irrelevant to this specific product. I will be writing here about the hardcover edition. I have not yet seen a copy of the paperback edition.

This beautiful and professionally-bound U Chicago edition of MHH appears to be a cover to cover facsimile of the Bodelian's copy of Marriage of Heaven and Hell. I mean "cover to cover" quite literally: the image posted here as the cover is a full-color photographic reproduction of a nineteenth-century binding, wear marks and all. Upon opening the book you will find a full-color reproduction of the inside cover, handwriting, bookstamp, and all. The next page -- which is a blank page in the original -- is again reproduced exactly, water stains and all. What you will be purchasing with this edition, then, is an exact reproduction of Copy B of the Marriage of Heaven and Hell from cover to cover, with the addition of Phillips's extensive introduction, textual transcription, notes, commentary, a checklist of copies, and bibliography. There's simply nothing like it; not even the edition published by the William Blake Trust for the Illuminated Books series. Owning this book is as close to owning an original copy of the Marriage of Heaven and Hell as you can get.

The William Blake Archive does have Copy B of the Marriage of Heaven and Hell online with a textual transcription, so you can preview the specific contents of the reproductions there. This edition, however -- being a full, cover to cover reproduction of the book owned by the Bodelian -- includes several additional plates that aren't part of the same sequence of images available on the Blake archive website (though probably available by selecting the individual plate and clicking "compare"). These additional images include several different copies of what is Plate 14 in the Bodelian copy with alternate copies of a few other plates from the MHH (such as A Song of Liberty and one of the Memorable Fancies), and a copy of "Our End is Come" preceding the text of MHH. You can read more details about Copy B of the MHH on the William Blake Archive website.

Overall, well worth the price and a good purchase even if you already own the William Blake Trust's edition. I think this volume represents the future of Blake publishing: professional facsimile editions of each individual copy.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Buy a different edition!, November 24, 2010

By 

pandajama - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (Text and facsimiles) (Hardcover)

Good grief -- the other reviewers of this book clearly did not buy it, but are arguing about Blake's theology and using this Website to do it.

I have no comment on the poem. It needs no defense and has fully established itself in Western culture.

But as for the *book*, the object you hold in your hands and look at, I do have a few words. This is a very poorly produced, poorly bound, amateurishly laid out book containing appalling reproductions of the art. It was pretty obviously created in Microsoft Word and bound at the equivalent of a Kinko's. For twenty bucks you can do a lot better. I'm returning my edition.

26 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Bible is not the definitive authority on quality., November 17, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (Oxford Paperbacks) (Paperback)

I fail to see how whether or not this book is contradictory to the bible is any indictation of whether it is good or not.