William Blake: the creation of the Songs: from manuscript to illuminated printing

Abstract

of Innocence and Experience is William Blake's most accessible work, bringing together Songs of Innocence, drawn from An Island In the Moon, and Songs of Experience whose 50 poems come from the Manuscript Notebook. This text details the evolution of the manuscript and the production process of the book. All the manuscript pages are reproduced here, and the details of Blake's composition are shown, as is his technique for etching text and design onto a single copperplate. Blake's development of a selective colour printing process, printing the design in opaque pigments over the original monochrome impression is explained. This technique was used in the production of of Experience, and contrasts with the first copies of of Innocence, which had hand-coloured transparent watercolours. Blake published Songs of Innocence and Experience in 1794. The last copies were elaborate and expensive, but Michael Phillips here looks at the first copies, revealing the original conception of Blake's work.