18 December 2002

The William Blake Archive is pleased to announce the publication of
Blake's 22 engraved _Illustrations of the Book of Job_.  This work is
generally considered Blake's masterpiece in traditional line engraving, as
well as the culmination of his long pictorial engagement with the Book of
Job.  His first series of 19 water colors illustrating Job were
commissioned c. 1805-06 by his chief patron, Thomas Butts.  These are
available in the Archive in Preview (see description below).  In 1821,
Blake and his new patron John Linnell borrowed this Butts set of designs.
Linnell traced the series and Blake colored them.  Blake also added two
more compositions to this later group and added versions of these same
compositions to the earlier series, so that both sets now have 21 designs.
The Linnell set led directly to his commissioning of the engravings, as
set forth in a contract dated 25 March 1823.  Blake began the project by
executing a series of 21 reduced pencil sketches of the central designs
for transfer to the copperplates.  According to John Linnell, the border
designs, unique to the engraved series, were a last-minute addition.
Blake also added a title page, perhaps late in the production process.
Although 21 of the plates bear 1825 imprints (the second plate was
mistakenly dated 1828), Linnell's account books show that the engravings
were not published until March 1826.

The copy reproduced in the Archive is from the first printing on laid
India paper with the word Proof appearing lower right on all but the title
page.  Also included, as the first item, is a copy of the original
letterpress cover label for the Job engravings.  Our complete
transcription of all engraved texts on each plate is the first to be
published in any form.  Both these inscribed texts and the designs are
fully searchable.

At present the Archive contains 48 copies of 18 of Blake's 19 illuminated
books, all fully searchable.  In addition to the Butts set of Job designs,
Blake's illustrations to Milton's "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso" are also
available in Preview, our mode of presentation that provides all the
features of the Archive except Image Search and Inote (our image
annotation program).  In the near future we expect to release a
much-anticipated electronic edition of _Jerusalem_ copy E, and further
supplementary materials, including a biography and glossary and more
drawings and prints in Preview, including the Job pencil sketches noted
above.

As always, the William Blake Archive is a free site, imposing no access
restrictions and charging no subscription fees. The site is made possible
through the continuing support of the Institute for Advanced Technology in
the Humanities at the University of Virginia, by a major grant from the
Preservation and Access Division of the National Endowment for the
Humanities, by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and by the
cooperation of the international array of libraries and museums that have
generously given us permission to reproduce works from their collections
in the Archive.

Morris Eaves, Robert N. Essick, and Joseph Viscomi, editors
Matthew G. Kirschenbaum and Andrea Laue, technical editors
The William Blake Archive

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