Rylands Blake project 10. The Book of Thel (1928)

In 1789, Blake engraved & printed his Songs of Innocence & The Book of Thel. Both these early works display characteristics that become more marked in Blake’s later work. His lyrics, as in Songs of Innocence (1789) & the later Songs of Experience (1794), express spiritual wisdom in radiant imagery & symbolism & are often written with a childlike simplicity. In Tiriel & The Book of Thel Blake uses for the first time the long unrhymed line of fourteen syllables, which was to become the staple metre of his narrative poetry. Tiriel, a first attempt at a narrative poem, was never engraved. The Book of Thel, with its lovely flowing designs, is an idyll akin to Songs of Innocence in its flowerlike delicacy & transparency. It represents the maiden, Thel, lamenting change & mutability by the banks of a river, where the lily, the cloud, the worm, & the clod comfort her.

Everything that lives,
Lives not alone, nor for itself.

In the realms where Thel wanders all beings still aspire to unity with Christ through selfless giving to others (of their fragrance, nurturing care, etc). The final section, with its vivid & horrible images of death, seems to contradict the explicit Christian message of the rest of the poem.



William Blake's The Book of Thel has been reproduced in facsimile ten times since 1876.

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1876.—Works by William Blake : Songs of innocence. 1789. Songs of experience. 1794. Book of Thel. 1789. Vision of the daughters of Albion. 1793. America: a prophecy. 1793. Europe: a prophecy. 1794. The first book of Urizen. 1794. The song of Los. 1794. Reproduced in facsimile from the original editions.—[London] : [Andrew Chatto, publisher].—144 leaves : ill. ; 39 cm.
“One hundred copies printed for private circulation.”
Monochrome facsimile printed by lithography and deriving from copy D (the British Museum copy).
Keynes notes that the lithographed plates are poorly executed, and that the text is inaccurate.


1885.—The book of Thel / The author & printer Willm Blake, 1789.—Edmonton : Blake Press.—[8] leaves : ill. ; 29 cm.
An edition of fifty copies lithographed and hand-coloured.
The dedication of the facsimile signed: Wm Muir.
A facsimile of copy D (the British Museum copy).

1920.—The book of Thel / Wm Blake.—London : B. Quaritch for W. Muir.—[8] leaves ...
Illustrations printed lithographically in green ink and coloured vividly by hand.
Printed wrappers.
Copied by Wm Muir from copy J (now Harvard University) but with lines 121-22 on pl. 8 retained (these lines were scraped off copy J).
Quaritch Catalogue No 693 (1951) notes that only 32 copies, not the announced 50, were actually produced.

1924.—The book of Thel.—London : Printed and published by Fredk. Hollyer.—8 leaves : ill ; 30 cm.
Edition limited to 25 copies.
Copy source unknown.
Colour collotype facsimiles mounted on card.

*1928.—The book of Thel / The author & printer Willm Blake, 1789.—London : Victor Gollancz; New York : Payson and Clarke Ltd.— ...
Facsimile of copy D printed by chromo phototype.

1933.—Iriamu Bureiku, Seru no Sho = William Blake, The Book of Thel.—Kyoto : privately printed at Kojitsu An.— ...
Translations into Japanese by Bunsho Jugaku face collotype facsimiles of the plates, which were coloured by hand by the translator and his wife Shizu.
Copy source unknown.
The first book published from Kojitsu-An (the Sunward Press) was a translation of The Book of Urizen.

1965.—The book of Thel / the author & printer Willm Blake, 1789. With a description and bibliographical statement by Geoffrey Keynes.—Boissia, Clairvaux : Trianon Press for the William Blake Trust; distributed by B. Quaritch.—[9]p : 8 plates, col facsim ; 29 cm.
"The edition consists of 426 copies".
Illuminated pages reproduced by the collotype and stencil (pochoir) process.
A facsimile of copy O, having a watermark bearing the date 1815, in the Rosenwald Collection in the Library of Congress.

1971.—The book of Thel / William Blake. A facsimile and a critical text ; edited by Nancy Bogen.—Providence RI: Brown University Press.—xiv, 82 p : illus ; 29 cm.
Colour facsimile of copy M, in the possession of the New York Public Library.

1974.—The illuminated Blake : all of William Blake's illuminated works with a plate-by-plate commentary; annotated by David V. Erdman.—Garden City NY : Anchor Press/Doubleday.—416 p : ill ; 22 x 28 cm.
Monochrome facsimile.
Reissued London : Oxford University Press, 1975; New York : Dover, 1992.

1993.—The early illuminated books : All religions are one : There is no nature religion : The book of Thel : The marriage of Heaven and Hell : Visions of the daughters of Albion ; edited with introductions and notes by Morris Eaves, Robert N. Essick, Joseph Viscomi.—London : William Blake Trust & the Tate Gallery; Princeton NJ : Princeton University Press.—286 p. : col. facsims ; 31 cm.—Blake's illuminated books ; 3.
Contents: colour facsimiles of the works listed with introductions and notes.

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FACSIMILE TITLE PAGE
THE | BOOK | of | THEL | The Author & Printer Willm Blake 1789

COLOPHON
This facsimile edition of The Book of Thel is | reproduced from the copy in the British Museum. | It is published in the year 1928 by VICTOR | GOLLANCZ LTD. in London and by PAYSON | AND CLARKE LTD. in New York, the edition | being limited to 850 copies for sale in England and | 850 copies for sale in the United States. | This is number

DESCRIPTION
10 leaves (first leaf blank) ; 28 cm
Colour facsimile on leaves 2-9.
A facsimile of copy D (the British Museum copy).
Chromo phototypes.

SPINE
THE BOOK OF THEL BY WILLIAM BLAKE

DUSTWRAPPER
[in a frame of four parallel lines] THE BOOK OF THEL | BY | WILLIAM BLAKE | REPRODUCED IN FACSIMILE | FROM THE COPY | IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM | LONDON | VICTOR GOLLANCZ LTD | 1928

NOTE
Copy specific information: "Twenty-five copies for sale of this facsimile edition of The Book of Thel (numbered i-xxv) have been printed on hand-made paper and published in London in 1928 by Victor Gollancz Limited. This copy is No. 3."

RYLANDS
Accession number R63788
Pressmark
Provenance

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COMMENT
Book production is very similar, particularly in the wider (850 + 850) limitation, to the Blake facsimiles issued by Ernest Benn, Ltd. Thel, like Benn's Innocence and Experience, is printed on Japanese vellum with delicate colouring. The narrower limitation (25 copies) follows Benn's Job in using hand-made paper.