Milton. A Poem in 2 Books

BLAKE, WILLIAM

Published by William Muir for Bernard Quaritch, Edmonton, 1886

FIRST OBTAINABLE COLORED EDITION OF WILLIAM BLAKE. William Muir facsimile edition, one of fewer than 50 copies printed. John Quinn's copy. William Blake's love of John Milton is well known. Of his relationship to his hero, he wrote in a letter to his friend John Flaxman, "Milton lov'd me in childhood and shew'd me his face." Of course the two poets did not live on this earth together, but with Blake's poem Milton, which he both wrote and illustrated between 1804 and 1810, he presents a fantasy of his imagined relationship with his deceased mentor. John Milton, as the hero, returns to earth to guide William Blake on a spiritual journey, exploring the relationships between living and dead writers. As a poet and artist, William Blake's relationship to his printed work was in many ways as intimate as his relationship to John Milton. Blake both wrote and illustrated his own works, even allowing for artistic variation between copies. Because of Blake's painstaking process as writer, artist, and publisher, so few first editions of his works are available, as to make them nearly unattainable. For his 1804 Milton, there are just four copies of the first edition. One would imagine that given the near impossibility of reading a first edition of Blake's work, printed editions would quickly follow. Yet they did not. According to William Blake scholar Gerald Buckley, most early reprintings were bowdlerized by Victorian publishers, who squeamishly found his drawings antithetical to contemporary prudish sensibilities. Thus throughout much of the 19th century, it was practically impossible to obtain or read a faithful work by William Blake. Not until 1886 was Blake's Milton reprinted faithfully in facsimile by William Muir. Remarkably, no publisher tried again to reproduce a facsimile edition until 1967. Thus, the Muir facsimile edition is quite literally the only early faithful, colored, edition of Blake available to a serious collector. Muir created about 49 copies of Milton. He did so, mostly on demand, between 1886 and 1929. William Muir's printing process employed methods similar to Blake's. He created lithographs which he printed and then hand colored, a labor-intensive process that took two years to prepare in the case of Milton. In the Introduction to Milton, Muir explains that he based his facsimile off of the original at the British Museum. Muir's Milton includes facsimiles not only the 45 plates from the original, but also a 3 page letter from Blake to William Hayley. Each of Muir's plates are hand colored. The copy offered here is not only incredibly rare, but also remarkable in its provenance. Milton was a part of the formidable collection of John Quinn (with his bookplate), one of the most important collectors of his generation. Quinn's impressive collection of art and literature made him a well known figure in New York and he spearheaded projects to promote artists. Not only did Quinn gather an impressive collection of books and art, he also gathered an impressive collection of literary friends including: W. B. Yeats, John Synge, James Joyce, Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot. A part of Quinn's great collection came from these friendships as well as his supporting writers in financial need, who in turn gifted Quinn with books and original manuscripts. Quinn was also instrumental in the publication of important works including Eliot's The Waste Land. Of his own collecting, Quinn wrote in the catalog to the 1923 auction of his collection: "Most of the books were secured by me as they were issued or published and that accounts of their good condition." As Muir printed his handful of precious copies of Blake in the very years that Quinn was collecting, it is probable that Quinn purchased the book directly from Muir. The copy here is unusually unnumbered. John Quinn's bookplate also has an interesting literary story. Designed by artist Jack B. Yeats, brother of William Butler Yeats, it was printed at Cuala Press, an Irish press started by El. Seller Inventory # 2868

Bibliographic Details

Title: Milton. A Poem in 2 Books
Publisher: William Muir for Bernard Quaritch, Edmonton
Publication Date: 1886
Condition: Very Good
Edition: William Muir Facsimile Edition.