I'll make this short and sweet: this book is the most important contribution to Blake Studies since Donald Ault's monumental "Narrative Unbound" was published in 1987. Dortort is so good it defies belief.

I have read many so-called "authoritative" works about Blake, but this one knocked my socks off! I can't wait until the word gets out on what Dortort is proposing here. It's definitely worth the time investment to get to what Dortort is proposing here. Any serious Blake lovers should check it out.

First of all this is a great book. Iam buying it for my grandso
in his new house for a coffee table book. The price was good and the condition of the book was excellent. You can't beat the packing and shipping time.

WAYFARER by James Dickey and William A. Bake. A haunting story from the mountains of the South and 178 glorious full-color photos by "The Faulkner of Photography."

Prophet? Madman? Or philosopher? The mythological characters in William Blake's prophetic poetry present a conundrum for the reader who confronts these characters with the traditional literary expectations of a symbolic reading. Indeed, the vanguard of contemporary criticism would argue that the very complexity of Blake's mythology precludes an all inclusive schemata.

Yet S. Foster Damon's A BLAKE DICTIONARY offers compelling testament that there was methodology in Blake's madness. In addition to providing a detailed enunciation of virtually every character in Blake's poetry, Damon further offers an exposition of the major themes and symbols which Blake repeatedly returned to in his longer prophetic works. Along with both Northrop Frye's FEARFUL SYMMETRY and David Erdman's PROPHET AGAINST EMPIRE, Damon's meticulously cross-referenced dictionary is an essential reference work for anyone who dares delve into Blake's complex mythology.

Some facts about Harold Bloom. He taught himself to read English (his family spoke Yiddish at home) at the age of 3 or 4. He has a photographic memory for text, and has more or less the whole canon of English poetry committed to memory.

Now granted, these facts don't guarantee genius by themselves, but Bloom has something extra to add to those other traits--an imaginative hunger and an enormous love for poetry and what it can do for the individual, sensitive reader.

Admittedly, this analysis of Blake owes quite a bit to Northrop Frye's "Fearful Symmetry," but there are many new insights that make this book worth much more than its price. Whatever one may think about Bloom's later literary analyses, his early work has, undeniably, the stamp of genius.

I was shown a copy of this book 25 years ago. Blake's art transformed my world. I have been a student of Blake ever since. I still go back to this book often. This book, in a few pages, gave me an entry into Blake's system.

Blake created his series of 116 watercolors at the turn of the century to illustrate 13 poems by Thomas Gray: this reproduces his watercolors in an affordable edition, allowing a much wider audience access to his works. Blake's Watercolours For The Poems Of Thomas Gray republishes all 116 plates originally in the Trianon Press edition.

June Singer's Blake, Jung, And The Collective Unconscious examines the words and images contained in Blake's works, considering Jung's concepts of archetypes and other ideas inherent in the verbal and visual images. An important, involving work.

The poet Yeats compiled this collection and tried to point out a new direction for Irish poetry in the process: Book Of Irish Verse republishes the original 1900 work, presenting lesser-known but still significant poets in an excellent collection.

This is the book that prompted one reviewer to gush, "After Dr. Norvig's vigorous analysis, Blake will never be the same again."

Regardless of the humor or accuracy of that statement, this book is an absolute steal. Stunning color reproductions accompany the erudite scholarly explanation of how Blake used the visual medium to interpret Bunyan's work.

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.