BIBLIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE
TO THE
SONGS OF INNOCENCE AND OF
EXPERIENCE
The Song's of Innocence (1789) was the first of Blake's works produced by the novel method which, in his prospectus of 1793, he styles 'illuminated printing.' The text and surrounding design were written in reverse, in a medium impervious to acid, upon small copper plates about 5" by 3", which were then etched in a bath of aqua fortis until the work stood in relief as on a stereotype. From these plates, which to economize copper were in many cases engraved upon both sides, impressions were printed, in the ordinary manner, in tints meant to harmonize with the colour scheme afterwards applied in water-colours by the artist. In the dexterous interweaving of text and design Blake anticipates the modern school of book illustration. Gilchrist's statement (Life, i. 68) that 'by the end of 1788 ... the illustrated designs in colour . . . had been executed ' conveys the impression that before engraving Blake had completed an entire series of coloured illustrations to the Songs of Innocence. This would seem to be pure assumption, and it is evident that no such sketches were known to Mr. W. M. Rossetti, or he would undoubtedly have included them in his exhaustive 'Annotated Catalogue of Blake's Pictures and Drawings' (Gilchrist, ii. 201-64). The only original designs known to the present writer are the following:—
(1) In Quaritch's General Catalogue (1887, p. 935) there is an entry of three coloured sketches for the Songs of Innocence 'from the collection of a friend of Blake's.' These designs, which are described as being 'in Blake's usual rich style of colouring' and as 'differing considerably from the published engravings,' are the Piper frontispiece, the Introduction ('Piping down the valleys wild'), and a third drawing called 'An Ideal Hell,' which is probably attributed by a cataloguer's error to the Songs of Innocence.
