Message-Id: <199906101401.HAA22152@dns.ccit.arizona.edu> Date: Thu, 10 Jun 1999 09:55:39 EDT From: Kari Kraus <mailto:KKraus27@AOL.COM> Subject: William Blake Archive update To: mailto:IMAGELIB@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU
Thought this announcement might interest some list members.Kari Kraus University of Rochester Project Assistant: The William Blake Archive mailto:kkru@uhura.cc.rochester.edu mailto:kkraus27@aol.com
> 2 June 1999
>
> The William Blake Archive <http://www.iath.virginia.edu/blake> is
> pleased to announce the publication of new electronic editions for two
> works in Blake's emblem series: _For Children: The Gates of Paradise_
> and the revised and augmented version _For the Sexes: The Gates of
> Paradise_. Through a numbered series of intaglio plates with
> inscriptions ranging from single words to brief aphorisms, Blake puts
> the course of human life from birth to death in psychological
> perspective. Some of the emblems form narrative sequences; others
> exemplify mental states and their reification in the external world.
> Blake etched in intaglio the eighteen plates of _For Children_ in 1793
> and printed all extant copies (A-E) in the same year. The copy published
> in the Archive is copy D, from the Rosenwald Collection, Library of
> Congress.
>
> In about 1820, Blake revised _For Children: The Gates of Paradise_,
> giving the work a new title, _For the Sexes: The Gates of Paradise_,
> reworking the design plates at least twice, and adding three new text
> plates at the end (19-21). Plates 19-20 contain brief interpretive
> statements keyed by number to the preceding design plates. The final
> plate is addressed to Satan as the "God of This [fallen] World." Copies
> A and B were probably printed c. 1820. Copies C and D, plus a large
> group of impressions never collated into complete copies by Blake but
> now divided into what are designated as copies J-N, date from c. 1825.
> Copies E-I are probably posthumous. We now publish copy D, from the
> collection of the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York.
>
> Both electronic editions have newly edited SGML-encoded texts and new
> images scanned and color-corrected from first-generation 4x5"
> transparencies; they are each fully searchable for both text and images
> and supported by the Inote and ImageSizer applications described in our
> previous updates.
>
> With the publication of these two titles, the Archive now contains 33
> copies of 18 separate books, including at least one copy of every one of
> Blake's works in illuminated printing except the 100 plates of
> _Jerusalem_ (forthcoming).
>
> Also, we are pleased to announce that a Tour of the Archive is now
> available online. Through a sequence of several dozen graphical
> screenshots linked to narrative commentary, the Tour introduces users to
> the basic organization and structure of the Archive, the features of its
> interface, its search options, and the function of the Inote and
> ImageSizer applications. The Tour is located in the "About the Archive"
> wing of the site. Available as the first link off our main table of
> contents page at the URL above, the "About the Archive" materials
> include, in addition to the Tour, a statement of Editorial Principles
> and Methodology, a Frequently Asked Questions list, a Technical Summary,
> and an updated version of the article-length Plan of the Archive
> detailing our intentions with regard to Blake's non-illuminated
> works--and more. We hope that the Tour, together with these other
> materials, will prove valuable both to our own growing user community
> and to scholars interested in the theory and practice of electronic
> editing more generally.
>
> Morris Eaves, Robert N. Essick, and Joseph Viscomi, Editors
> Matthew G. Kirschenbaum, Technical Editor
> The William Blake Archive
>
>