I have always loves Blake - in particular the facsimile editions with Blake's watercolor designs bordering the beautiful copper-plate text, but nowhere have I been struck by the power of his writing to the extent that I have by this volume. The layout that Dr. Diamond has chosen adds immeasurably to the force of Blake's words. The imagery in these passages leaps off the page, and the reader is given a compelling sense of the creative visions that must have inspired Blake to write.

This is a wonderful collection of Blake's later poems is specifically edited to enhance their therapeutic power and comprehensibility. This anthology, more than any other I have come across, helps to make these obscure works accessible; and the layout and punctuation has deepened my experience of them.

I love this book. I keep it by my armchair and open it when there's a quiet moment. And when I do, the power of Blake comes to me and helps me throughout my day. Only Blake speaks with such passion and strength, and his poetry is presented here unadulterated by titles, footnotes or page the poetry in landscape format so that Blake's long lines need not be broken. Whatever your previous experience of poetry, this book will enhance your life in a way that only such a distillation of Blake could achieve

In 1995 & '96 I was traveling to London regularly on business trips. During one of my site seeing ventures the name of William Blake finally penetrated my consciousness. I became fascinated with the gallery the Tate museum (now Tate Britain) had of his work. I saw this book at the airport and picked it up and it became a London obsession for me. When I would get back to London I would look up streets and sites that I had read about in this WONDERFUL book.

This was the first book of Ackroyd's I read and became a fan immediately. Since he is also a writer of fiction and is a profound scholar of London he offers great insight into Blake and his art. I have since added many other volumes of Blake's works and other books on Blake to my library but I still have deep affection for this book. When someone asks me what book they should read about Blake I always point them to this great book.

You will get to know Blake's life and work, but you will also get to know Blake's relationship to London (where he spent almost all of his life) and to the other artists of his time such as Flaxman, Reynolds, and others. It is even worth re-reading. That is high praise!

This is a great biography. Blake is a complex character. A visionary, an artist whose writing and paintings created a total vision. Ackroyd doesn't belittle the aspirations or eccentricities of Blake, and fleshes out his portrait with interesting details and contextualizes Blake's life within the world events through which he lived.

Of course the reproductions of Blake's work don't do justice to them. Particularly the watercolors in which the luminous white comes from the color of the unpainted paper. These works come off looking clumsy in reproductions. If you have the chance to see these works in person, the effect is altogether different. Blake created a worldview, and he inhabited that (largely interior) mythos.

Find this book. Buy it, and then do anything you can to see Blake's works themselves.

Reading William Blake's enigmatic painted poems on the Web, standing before his paintings in the Tate Gallery, I wished to find a good book which could help in understanding this great artist. My dream came true when I opened Peter Ackroyd's book 'Blake'. I recommend this book to everyone who is interested (as am I) in life and oeuvre of William Blake, the beautiful mysterious English poet, painter and visionary. Mr Ackroyd does not try to decipher and explain the inner meaning of all Blake's poems, paintings and prophesies (nobody can do this!), but in the description of the great mystic's life, time and milieu he gives us important clues. In several chapters he also confides us personal insights of some Blake's masterpieces. Turning the last page of the book you will wish to reread Blake's poems and prophesies and review his paintings: this is the best an author can attain in writing an artist's biography.

I could go on forever about the beauty and complexities of Blake's poetry, but nothing I could say could communicate the experience of reading Blake, so my advice would be to read through this collection yourself and then read Northrop Frye's analysis of Blake's work. I have yet to do so myself, but I hope to do so eventually. Blake's poetry is not something to be understood by the rational faculties and just needs to be absorbed in all it's beauty by reading and rereading it.

I like this anthology better than any others I have come across (belive me I've seen many) because it arranges all of the poems in chronological order rather than trying to organize them for you. This way you can read them in the order they were developed or choose any other way to read them and still be able to find them by the date. This edition is also more complete and does not contain sections of poems like 'Jerusalem' or 'The Four Zoas', but the works in their entirety. The letters at the end are also an unexpected delight to read.

Mr. Keynes' edition of Blake's complete poetry and prose is the one I've used not only at Shimer College, but also in Russia and China when I taught Blake there. Mr. Keynes arranges Blake's writings chronologically. The reader can thus more clearly see how Blake's mythic system evolves. Clarity matters when a reader falls into a universe as visionary and fluid as William Blake's.

Each poem is a like a magical brick in the mystical structure Blake ultimately builds. His work begins in Innocence, a world where science, imagination, love, and wild beasts blithely dance in balance. When the cruelty, greed, and fears of Experience blight the peaceable kingdoms then society and the human soul split into warring factions.

Blake has been called apocalyptic. In his late great prophetic books families, lovers, societies, and the ecosystem fall to bits. But Los, Blake's heroic artist, "keeps the divine vision in times of trouble." Techno-science and institutionalized greed overshadow the earth, but Los keeps on building Golgonooza, the gorgeous city of art which ultimately connects heaven and earth. This can bring Jerusalem (the feminine divine)back into the heart of Albion (the universal humanity). When the feminine divine suffuses masculine power all things coalesce in a cosmic orgasm of art, science, pleasure, and prayer. "There is no body distinct from the soul!" Mr. Blake proclaimed in his Marriage of Heaven & Hell. "Everything that lives is Holy!" cries Oothoon, whose indestructible purity embraces the love that's "free as the mountain wind." She's become a role model for some exuberant Shimer students.

To truly partake of Blake please treat yourself to at least a few of the full-color illustrated editions that are now wonderfully affordable. The Dover editions are a bargain--but I order the Blake Trust (Princeton University Press) editions for my classes as well as Sir Geoffrey Keynes' lovingly edited Complete Writings. Buy this book! It can bring you bliss!

William Blake is one of the most underrated writers of all time. He is also a wonderful visual artist. Unlike his contemporaries, such as Milton, he created his own Mythology. A complex heirarchy of preternatural beings. Many people have spent years trying to piece together the puzzle of his complex philosophy. Any fan of enlish literature, and desire to be challeged by a writer gifted not only in meter, but also in content will be sad that they had not read Blake sooner. He comes very highly recommended. He affects the way you think. I close with his words: "Forth from the dead dust, rattling bones to bones/ Join; shaking convuls'd, the shiv'ring clay breathes,/ And all naked flesh stands: Fathers and Friends,/ Mothers & Infants, Kings & Warriors."

If you haven't read Malcom Muggeridge, don't give up yet--you may yet do so. Should that happy event occur, you may end up as puzzled as I am that most of Malcom Muggeridge is out of print. A Third Testament, for instance was the accompanying book for a series of films/TV shows written and narrated by Mr. M.M.. You'd think since Little, Brown published the book, and it was owned by Time-Life, which also owned the shows, that ads would be popping up on late night TV for the whole Time-Life Muggeridge collection. Think again. Or you'd think that since Collins Books (now part of HarperCollins) brought out the two volumes of his autobiography, The Chronicles of Wasted Time, to rave reviews on both sides of the Atlantic, that someone might trouble to keep them in print. Think again again.

The reason must be that the author's life was too dull, his writing style too lifeless and dry, his testament (whatever that is) prescribed bedtime reading for insomniacs. His titles notably absent from the bestseller list, he would understandably not be a household name. One wouldn't recognize him as a former editor of the British humour magazine, Punch, or as a player on the BBC's send-up of the news, That Was the Week That Was. But that would explain why his books are so side-splittingly funny. One also wouldn't know that he did the first BBC interview with Mother Teresa, and was profoundly moved by her life, an inspiration evident in A Third Testament. That would explain why his books are so profound. Nor would one know of the awakening in his soul that led him to tirelessly denounce the idiocy of modern life even as Malcom and his wife, Kitty, simplified their own lives to follow a different drummer. That would explain why this book by a late convert to the Catholic Church was reprinted by Plough Publishing and praised by readers of all spiritual stripes. But nothing can explain why these Muggeridge books are all out of print, or keep readers who have tasted one from tracking down them all.

AN AMAZING BOOK! I picked this book up randomly. It was in a forgotten RELIGIOUS section of a city library. Malcolm takes scattered history and complicated theology and reveals what it simply looked like in the lives of these great leaders. Definitely food for the heart and the soul!

Muggeridge has created in this book and in the accompanying video series a humble, honest, and beautiful work of simple yet deeply compelling biography. By focusing on the spiritual journeys of six/seven essential figures (in the video series he covers Augustine, Pascal, Kierkegaard, Blake, Tolstoy, and Boenhoffer, and in the book he adds to this group Dostoyevsky) Muggeridge discovers certain necessities of the spiritual life and illuminates them and brings them into focus. Both the book and the video series are essential to any library collection of contemporary religious thought.

Someone must bring these back into print!

Excellent narrative that provides the historic context for what is emerging as one of the most difficult and contentious fights between economic and enviromental interests anywhere in the US. The photography is outstanding and Kittredge's discussion of the people and the issues in this beautiful area provide concise insight for anyone interested in understanding the tragedy of US government policies on the management of the land, the people, the fish, and the birds of the Klamath Lake basin. Strongly recommend!!!

This book is an epiphany. Kittredge is the best essayist writing about the American west living today, and the photographs are almost perfect. This book will introduce readers to an area that has remained mostly obscure, an area where huge environmental dramas have long since began, and are still being played out. Many sympathies are presented in this book; lots of heros, too. An amazing read.

Blake's work must be read in reproduction. An engraver by trade, Blake revolutionized book production with his "infernal method" of engraved illumination, hand-crafting each book. In the Continental Prophesies, Blake revolutionizes historiography; _America_'s retelling of the American Revolution, for instance, juxtaposes Washington and Paine with Orc and Urizen, fact with myth, to produce something that powerfully transcends the dull round of history. The accompanying illuminations cannot be omitted-- they do not simply illustrate the text, but ILLUMINATE it, supplementing and counter-pointing. And Blake's art is awesome. The Blake Trust's series is superb, conveniently transcribing the handwritten text of the engraved text on the adjacent page, offering important visual variations between versions of the book, and amply providing comprehensive glosses (in seperate sections, both interpretative and contextual) on each plate/page visually and textually. It is expensive to buy the entire series, but one MUST have Blake's illuminations, and Blake is an author for whom one needs all the notes one can get (Blake's allusions are extremely complex, so one must at least recognize them on the most basic level). One cannot say enough about the the visions of Blake presented in these books, but this is too much; you must SEE.

I recommend that any fan of William Blake buy this volume and the other 5 in the series. The books are beautiful, large, and handsomely bound. Each book is reproduced in full color, using a six-color printing process rather than the standard four. The pages are heavy, opaque and have a gorgous lustre indicating very high quality paper. The text of each book accompanies the color reproductions in standard typeface with very competent commentary to boot.

A must have!

I own several editions of the so called "Complete Poetry" editions of Blake. Well, this one just stands out on his own. Although it would have been nicer if it had included more images (it includes only 4 monochromes) I must admit that this book's achivements are its complementary notes and commentaries. Erdman is really an amazing researcher and he has helped me a lot in understanding Blake's universe. Harold Bloom does his share when commenting most of the larger poems, and to comment Jerusalem or Milton is almost as commenting Miltons' "Padarise Lost" or even the Bible. They both deliver a great deal of insight on Blake's poetry, and I'm thankful for that. I have been a fan of Blake's poetry for almost 5 years now, and I've only started to understand his larger prophetic poems.

If you're new to Blake you may not need this kind of book... Even if you are a Blake fan. Maybe Alicia Ostriker's "The Complete Poems" (ISBN 0-14-042215-3) can give you a lighter side of Blake. As a matter of fact, what I liked so much about Alicia's edition is that it has an index of proper names, so If you don't know who (or what) The Four Zoas stand for, maybe you should consider buying her book.

If you are looking for Blake's works of art, then you must get your hands on any of the wonderful DOVER editions published... They are ... and brilliantly printed.

Anyway, if you are new... Welcome.
If you are an oldie... GET THIS BOOK! or even better GET THE MANUSCRIPT FACSIMILE!

This book is marvelous! With every poem and prose work done by Blake, including letters, commentary, and textual notes, this is ~the~ book for all Blake fans. This book even shows the stages of Blake's writing in the textual notes, such as the various versions of his poems. Highly recommended!

There's not much more I can say after reading the reviews below, except to agree that this is _the_ book to own if you're wanting to add William Blake to your library.

This is a large book, clocking in at around nine hundred pages. Within you'll find all the great poetry that makes Blake, well, Blake. The "Songs of Innocence and Experience" are truly wonderful, as is "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell".

Lots to read here beyond than the known works, including miscellaneous poems, songs and verses and sataric verses and epigrams, even letters that Blake himself wrote.

The book is neatly organized and easy to navigate, making the section you're looking for a snap to find. At the back of the book are sections with textual notes (a small "t" is marked throughout Blake's works), and commentary (a small "c"), also marked. Invaluable resources to help understand and navigate the complexity of Blake's poems and prose. An index of titles and first lines is also included in the back.

All in all a wonderful collection for any Blake fan to own and for the curious to lose themselves in the majesty that is William Blake.

I recently re-read a number of my book on Blake--I made a serious study of him as a philosophy student in graduate school--and discovered again how most of them, good as they are, pale next to Northrop Frye's masterful work. If you want to understand Blake's thought, this is the book to read. It is serious and challenging, but always readable. I can't think of another book I've read that packs more insights into every page.

So you're in the bookstore and you've just pulled this book off the shelf when the lights go out. You call out in the dark, "Hey, has anybody read 'Anatomy of Criticism?' Clerks and customers volunteer opinions, some of them informed and well-meaning. Still, you wish you could read the darn blurbs.

These are from the back cover of my copy of 'Anatomy of Criticism:'

...simply overpowering in the originality of its main concepts, and dazzling in the brilliance of its applications of them. Here is a book fundamental enough to be entitled 'Principia Critica.' -- Vivian Mercier, 'Commonweal'

...an attempt to give 'a synoptic view of the scope, theory, principles, and techniques of literary criticism,' ...the book is continuously informed by original and incisive thought, by fine perception, and by striking observations upon literature in general and upon particular works. -- 'Modern Language Review'

Does literary criticism need a conceptual universe of its own? Professor Frye has written a brilliantly suggestive and encyclopedically erudite book to prove that it does; and he has done his impressive best to provide a framework for this universe. His book is a signal achievement; it is tight, hard, paradoxical, and genuinely witty... [Frye] is the most exciting critic around; I do not think he is capable of writing a page which does not offer some sort of intellectual reward.' -- Robert Martin Adams, 'Hudson Review'

This is a brilliant but bristling book, an important though thoroughly controversial attempt to establish order in a disorderly field. ...Mr. Frye has wit, style, audacity, immense learning, a gift for opening up new and unexpected perspectives in the study of literature... It would be hopeless to attempt a brief summary of Mr. Frye's dazzlingly counterpointed classifications.' -- Thomas Vance, 'The Nation'

The above were written in the mid-1950s when the book first came out. Reaction to 'Anatomy of Criticism' continues. Some readers are honked off by Frye's notion of looking at literature as if it were a particular world with its own structures. Frye worked to develop coherent ways of thinking about books that went beyond value judgements grounded in social fashion or individual taste. He hoped to get criticism away from bickering over rankings of "greatness" and pronouncements of worth based on political or religious criteria.

Some of Frye's critics say his approach to criticism isn't enough of a science -- that he's optimistic about human nature, and he sees entities and landscapes that aren't real. That's certainly true. Others say his approach isn't artistically appreciative enough, that he's incapable of enjoying a butterfly till he's gassed it and filed it in the proper drawer. That's certainly hooey. Frye was as delighted and informed and transformed by his reading as the rest of us. It's just that if he saw a great system of thought in, say, the work of poet William Blake, he went on to show the extent of this thought, revealing how Blake's work carried echoes from other works all the way back to the Old Testament, and how Blake's vision extended far ahead of him all the way to Rimbaud's hell and Rilke's angels, Kafka's castle and James's ivory tower, Yeats's vortices and Proust's hermaphrodites, Eliot's dying god and Joyce's Finnegan. But this is becoming a review of Frye's 'Fearful Symmetry.'

I like Northrop Frye because he reminds me that literature can do more than report life with embellishments. The human imagination, and literature in particular, tells us not just what humanity is but what it can be, giving us the same bogus pitch over and over, outlining the impossible, appealing to our deepest wishes and fears, pulling us up by our bootstraps till we want to get up out of the mire and walk on water -- even to the point we begin devising ways of doing it. 'Anatomy of Criticism' is an effort to help us know what we get from reading literature and to show us it is knowledge we can do something with.

One disadvantage of browsing online bookstores is that you can't simply skim the cover blurbs; sometimes you just have to settle for the opinions of strangers like me. So it may be helpful to read the quotes on the back cover of my copy of 'Fearful Symmetry.'

"To say it is a magnificent, extraordinary book is to praise it as it should be praised, but in doing so one gives little idea of the huge scope of the book and of its fiery understanding . Several great poets have written of Blake, but this book, I believe, is the first to show the full magnitude of Blake's mind, its vast creative thought." -- Edith Sitwell, 'The Spectator'

"According as we agree or disagree with Mr. Frye's contention we shall decide finally on the supremacy of his book. In following the structure of Blake's total vision and relating it to the thought of his age he has triumphantly carried out a task which, given the giant shape of the material, cannot help being immense. His cadences, by sheer explanatory devotion, approach the sonorities of Blake's own." -- 'Times Literary Supplement'

"Frye conducts his ambitious study with unflagging energy, great enthusiasm, and immense erudition." -- 'Poetry'

"An intelligent and beautifully written critical interpretation of the poetry and symbolic thought of William Blake..." -- 'New Yorker'

My opinion: Northrop Frye's literary criticism manages to shift the ground underfoot in the same rare way Blake's poetry does. Frye was the first to crack Blake's code, remove from him the labels of Mystic and Nutcase, and reveal him as a poet who systematically recreates the world. Frye taught Blake to Jesuits, Communist organizers, deans of women, and angry young poets. He was continually pleased to encounter doctors, housewives, clergymen, teachers, blue-collar workers, and shopkeepers, all with a great and deep appreciation of Blake.

Frye's deep appreciation and admiration for Blake comes through on every page, six times over. I reread this book about every five years, each time coming away seeing the world upside down, inside out, and worth renovating.

It may seem an immediate departure to discuss Blake's biography, but it must be considered. Leaving formal school at ten, Blake first entered a drawing school, very early evincing great artistic talent. An eight year apprenticeship with engraver James Basire was a milestone of Blake's rather low key life. Blake's talents in the art of engraving were immeasurably important to both the full expression of his poetry and visual art.

As a poet, Blake opted for an almost facile, rhythmic, lyrical approach. His metre was superbly tight, his vocabulary surprisingly controlled for an 18th century writer. Of the two parts, Songs of Experience is the better of the two; not only did five years give Blake's poetry just one more dash of prowess, but his topics are dealt with in a more effective and interesting manner. His subject matter also becomes more bleak, more wearily phrased. A perfect example: Here is a stanza from ...Innocence's The Divine Image

For mercy has a human heart
Pity, a human dress
And love, the human form divine
And peace the human dress

Compare this with the poem of the same name in experience:

Cruelty has a human heart,
And jealousy a human face
Terror, the human form divine
And secrecy, the human dress

Whyfore this turnabout, from an almost sanguine mentality to one so dour and unmitigatedly bleak that Blake excluded this poem and attendant engraving in most editions of his Songs...

First, the death of Robert, Blake's beloved younger brother and apprentice. It is said that Blake stayed up a fortnight nursing his ill brother; a four day sopor followed. Later, Blake was to report that he was visited by Robert's spirit, laden with ideas as to the format of the Songs. ...Such poems as the Chimney Sweeper and the Little Boy Lost are frightful, cynical visions of the fractured side of London life. Take this stanza from Little Boy Lost, a story of a child martyed for speaking his mind:

The weeping child could not be heard
The weeping parents wept in vain
They strip'd him to his little shirt
And bound him with an iron chain

And burned him in a holy place
Where many had been burned before
The weeping parents wept in vain
Are such things done on Albions shore?

This darker judgement of life does not preclude the two motifs most sacred to Blake: Religion and love. Poems such as the Clod and the Pebble, The Pretty Rose Tree, both Holy Thursdays, the Laughing Song, and the Lamb all explore some aspect of divine justice or the perverse or beautiful aspects of love.

Something fascinating: In that very racist, colony-crazy, native torching time, Blake iconoclastically treats the subject of race in the Little Black Boy, which describes a black child of such spiritual perception that he is able to guide his paler brethren on the path to God. This intimation of an oppressed race's closeness to an arcane but majestic God is a keynote in the study of the fiercely individualistic Blake. Buy this book when you see it.

I bought this book for a friend's birthday. At home, I read it through, soon experiencing the shameful thought that I wanted to keep it for myself. I didn't keep it, but I quickly found my own copy.

Fool that I am, I have never appreciated poetry much. This book opened my eyes. I write this review in the hope that someone may be encouraged to read it, and experience the wonder that it brought to me.

No words can do justice to these poems. I just marvel at how such seemingly simple compositions could contain so much meaning. Blake cuts straight to the spiritual essence of human existence. There are very few books that I could say have deepened my faith in God. This is one.

I was recently lucky to see the Gutenburg to Gone With the Wind Exhibit in Austin, Texas recently. At that marvelous exhibit I got to see one of Blake's original editions of Songs of Innocence. After that, I (of course) had to find a copy with the amazing poems and the amazing artwork by Blake. This edition satisfied both criteria well. First of all, the poems are brilliant. Everybody has read such works as "Little Boy Lost," "Little Boy Found," "The Shepherd," "The Lamb," and "The Tyger." These poems are just as good as they are made out to be. Each poem is excrutiatingly simple (in the style of children's verse), and each has such depth. The artwork is all in this edition, too, and it is fabulous. The colors are exactly like those of Blake's. I really think that the poems should never be read without Blake's engravings. This is a marvelous book for poetry lovers to own. It is high quality and affordable. Any fan of Blake's should own this book.

I am so in love with William Steig's books that I was a little bit startled to see that Quentin Blake had illustrated "Wizzil"--but since I adore Blake also, that was only a momentary setback. "Wizzil" is an unusual witch tale in that the witch ends up not only changing for the better, but having a pretty darned good life for herself once someone takes a moment to show her some kindness.

Steig pulls out all the stops here--don't you love the character names? Let's see, there's Wizzil the witch, DeWitt Frimp, Florence and Fred Frimp (try saying THAT three times fast!), and of course, a parrot named Beatrice. It's a happy combination of offbeat, cranky text and the loosey-goosey pen-and-ink illustrations of the inimitable Quentin Blake. Too good to miss!

I found "Wizzil" at the local library and thought it would be just another picture book to share with my children. As I started reading it, I was instantly hooked on the writing style of author William Steig. This book is "awesome" and "highly entertaining." I am also a children's writer myself trying to break into the business, so I have read and studied many children's picture books--this one by far stands out as being one of the best written. The imagination of William Steig is very comical as well as highly entertaining. His writing style is one of the best. You can't help but love his characters and sink into the story. I am going to purchase my own copy of this book--this is one story my kids will want to hear over and over. It is a purchase well worth the price. I was amazed to find out he also wrote "Shrek." What a talented writer!

Wizzil, that horrible, nasty hag is bored and decides to entertain herself by making the Frimp family suffer. She turns herself into a work glove and leaves herself right in the path of Grandpa, DeWitt Frimp. He picks up the glove, puts it on and just can't believe his good fortune. That is until strange things begin to happen. When he tries to swat houseflies, he hits everything but the flies, destroying the house. The rest of the family begins to suffer, too. They develope unbearable itches that only get worse with scratching. At dinner, meatballs begin exploding and water spurts like fountains, right out of their glasses. The next morning, the whole house begins to shake and won't stop. DeWitt, can't take it anymore. He figures it must be the glove, that's when all the trouble started and throws it into the river. Then a strange thing happens. The glove turns back into Wizzil. She sputters and thrashes and sinks. DeWitt can't stand to watch her drown and jumps into the water to save her. As he pulls the repulsive witch to shore, all that mean nastiness washes away and when Wizzil and DeWitt look into each others eyes, it's true love, happily ever after..... Award winning author, William Steig has written another terrific story full of silly characters, laugh-out-loud scenes and hip kid-speak language that will charm and delight youngsters. Quentin Blake's expressive, busy cartoon-like illustrations compliment the story perfectly and together they've authored a picture book kids will want to read again and again. Perfect for children 4-8, Wizzil is a winner.