Prophecy: ‘The Tyger’ and ‘The Fly’

Abstract

On 10 October 1793 Blake issued from his home in Lambeth a prospectus (Keynes 1966, 207–8) which announced that ten works were ‘published and on Sale’. The most expensive were a large engraving of Job, which was to ‘commence a Series of subjects from the Bible’, and a large engraving of Edward and Elinor, which was to ‘commence a Series of subjects’ from English history. The cheapest were two visionary successors to the tractates, in which Blake sought through complementary emblem-sequences to reveal the analogous cyclical forms of national and individual experience. His plan for The History of England is known only from a list of subjects in the notebook (Keynes 1966, 208–9); but The Gates of Paradise was completed at this date as a book ‘for children’ (Keynes 1966, 209) and later refashioned as a book ‘for the sexes’ (Keynes 1966, 760–71). The other six items were described as ‘illuminated Books … printed in Colours’; and with reference to these Blake claimed to have ‘invented a method of Printing both Letter-press and Engraving in a style more ornamental, uniform, and grand, than any before discovered’. The illuminated books advertised included The Book of Thel, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell and Visions of the Daughters of Albion; and they also included ‘Songs of Innocence … Octavo, with 25 designs, price 5s’ and ‘Songs of Experience … Octavo, with 25 designs, price 5s’.