Rylands Blake project 2. Visions of the Daughters of Albion (1884)

Muir's facsimile of Visions of the Daughters of Albion has the most complicated history of any of the Blake Press facsimiles. Both low and high-numbered copies of the limitation of fifty are based on Blake's original copy A (British Museum) but Keynes implies that the majority were done from the Butts copy (B) of the original. Essick's and other late facsimiles (executed 1923-1928) were apparently based on copy G. Seven copies were printed on “antique note-paper”.

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WRAPPER TITLE
Number [space for numeral & Muir's signature] | Visions of the Daughters of Albion | W Blake 1793


EDITION
Facsimile reproduction by Wm. Muir

PUBLISHER
Edmonton : William Muir,

YEAR OF PUBLICATION
[1884]
Distributed London: Pearson, 1884 ; London : Quaritch, 1885.
Copies completed as late as 1928.

DESCRIPTION
13 leaves (hand col) ; 29 cm.

CONTENTS
“Preface”.—Facsimile (11 hand-coloured plates).—blank leaf.

NOTES
Limited ed. of 50 copies.

Lithographic facsimile printed in orange ink on wove paper. Hand-coloured in watercolour.
Facsimile of the 1793 ed. printed by William Blake. The preface to the facsimile signed: Wm. Muir.
Leaves sewn into blue-grey wrappers with vellum spine. Facsimile interleaved with tissue.
Muir’s original price for this facsimile was three guineas.

COPIES
Master copy—John Rylands Library
Unnumbered—National Library of Scotland
No 4—British Library
No 10—Essick Collection
No 40—Essick Collection
No 47—Essick Collection. On “ANTIQUE NOTE” laid paper. Delivered to Quaritch 31 May 1887.

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MUIR'S PREFACE

PREFACE.

To His Serene Highness | Prince Victor Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Count Gleichen, &c. | Your Serene Highness | and | My kind Patron

Perhaps Mr Gilchrist’s interpretation of this Book is as good as any that can be given. The “soft soul of America—Oothoon” loves “Theotormon”, and goes to be near him after a struggle with her own shyness, but she is taken in the thunders or toils of Bromion the evil spirit of the soil (‘qy. sea?) | Theotormon, in jealous fury, chains them—”terror and meekness”—together,—back to back, in Bromion’s caves, and seats himself sorrowfully by.

The lamentations of Oothoon and her appeals to Theotormon, with his replies form the burthen of the poem. The ‘Daughters of Albion’ enslaved, weeping and sighing towards America ‘hear her woes and echo back her sighs’ | Formidable moral questions are, in an enigmatic way , occasionally opened up.—

The illustrations are magnificent in energy and portentousness.

If your Highness thinks this somewhat meager and indefinite I can only plead, with Mr Gilchrist, the difficulty of giving shape to that which hath none. The fact is that this Book and others like it are merely reveries—fancies noted down as they presented themselves to Blake’s consciousness, and born, not of attention acting intelligently on a definite subject and with a definite purpose, but of mere unconscious cerebration.

The automatic way in which they presented themselves to Blake seems to have suggested to him that they might be projections from some other sphere of being. Apart from their origin they are all most suggestive reveries. Their dim dealings with human passion and struggle stimulate the fancy of both poet and painter in much the same way as the sounds and sights of nature do.

I am your Highness humble servant | Wm Muir | Edmonton 1885.

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RELATED MATERIALS IN THE ESSICK COLLECTION

A group of proofs and finished facsimile leaves, all probably related to Muir’s first (1884/5) facsimile, perhaps an early attempt at a facsimile of copy G and/or F, and single-leaf facsimile projects by Emily Druitt, Muir’s sister-in-law, and a member of his circle of facsimilists. Also an annonymous note, acquired with and making reference to the Visions of the Daughters of Albion production materials. Dated 17 Sept. 1945 with a postscript dated the next day. The note indicates that the materials were acquired from Muir’s widow by Bernard Quaritch Ltd.

1. Pl. 1, printed in gold on laid paper watermarked “ANTIQUE [NOTE].” Not coloured.
2. Pl. 1, drawing (no visible printed image) on Antique Note, colored as in Muir’s c. 1923 facsimile
of this plate.
3. Pl. 1, drawing on heavy wove paper, inscribed in pencil “from plate in BM”—i.e., the coloring
based on the impression in The Large Book of Designs, copy A.
4. Pl. 1, drawing on Antique Note, signed “E. Druitt 1884.” Colored after the impression in The Large Book of Designs, copy A.
5. Pl. 3, design only, printed in gold on Antique Note, delicately hand colored as in Muir’s 1885 facsimile of copy A.
6. Pl. 3, design only, drawing on Antique Note. Inscribed in pencil, “from a plate in the Brit Mus”—i.e., the colouring based on the impression in The Small Book of Designs copy A.
7. Pl. 3, printed in gold on Antique Note and elaborately hand colored as in Muir’s c. 1923 facsimile of copy G (which, however, is printed in black).
8. Pl. 4, printed in gold on wove paper with a Britannia watermark. Not coloured.
9. Pl. 6, printed in gold on Antique Note and coloured as in Muir’s c. 1923 facsimile.
10. Pl. 7, printed in gold on Antique Note and very carefully colored as in Muir’s c. 1923 facsimile of this plate (from copy F?).
11. Pl. 7, printed in gold on heavy wove watermarked “HODGKINSON & [cut off].” Elaborately hand-coloured. Inscribed in pencil, “from a plate in the BM”—i.e., the coloring based on the impression in The Large Book of Designs, copy A, but with the text added.
12. Pl. 11, printed in gold on Antique Note and colored as in Muir’s c. 1923 facsimile of this plate(from copy F?).

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CONTEMPORARY REVIEWS

WE are not prepared to declare with Mr. J. Pearson (46, Pall Mall) that the copy he has sent us of the Visions of the Daughters of Albion, by W. Blake, 1793, as coloured by hand from the picked example in the British Museum, is ever likely to be esteemed so that in a few years’ time it will be difficult to tell which is the original. Still it gives us pleasure to say that we can hardly expect to see finer transcripts of the plates in any published form. Only a draughtsman of very choice skill would furnish a better copy of the whole work than that before us. The reproduction of the outlines is simply perfect ; the colours are repeated with vigour and delicacy, and lack only some of the purity of Blake’s own handiwork. The process of colouring such copies by hand is the only one which promises fortunate results. Mr. Pearson has been so well served by these who coloured these plates that the names of those persons ought to have been given with each copy of the reproduction. Only fifty copies are, it is stated, to be issued. “If it meets with the encouragement it deserves,” says the publisher, “Blake’s other works shall follow,” and while we write another has reached us.—THE ATHENÆUM, no. 2964 (16 August 1884), page 216.

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Mr. William Muir has undertaken a task which only enthusiasm could have inspired, and which nothing but infinite patience and considerable talent could carry through. He has undertaken to issue a small edition, limited to 50 copies, of the celebrated books of William Blake, printed in exact imitation of the originals, and every copy coloured by hand. Five books have appeared as yet—”The Songs of Innocence,” “The Songs of Experience,” “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell,” “The Book of Thel,” and “The Visions of the Daughters of Albion.” It was at first arranged that Mr. Pearson, of Pall-mall, should be the publisher; but the enterprise has now been taken in hand by Mr. Quaritch, who will publish the remaining volumes. One consequence of this change is that Mr. Muir and his staff of copyists have had access to what are perhaps the finest examples of the originals in existence—namely the Beckford copies of “The Songs of Experience” and of some other volumes. “The Songs of Innocence” are copied from the volume that Blake gave to Flaxman; and, in a word, Mr. Muir has spared no pains to secure the best originals that were accessible.

It is not necessary at this time of day to say much in praise of William Blake, or to discourse at length upon the strange visions seen by the mental eye and expressed by the hand, of that half crazy enthusiast but true artist and poet. Gilchrist’s “Life” and Mr. Swinburne’s brilliantly rhetorical essay long ago expressed the feelings of the inner circle of worshippers. That inner circle has not extended much since the publication of those books, and the public that cares for art has come to discriminate between Blake at his best and Blake at his wildest. But though some of his drawings are once more only lightly esteemed, there is no decline in the value of Blake’s printed books, which are always eagerly contended for whenever they come into the market. Beckford’s copies we have mentioned already; another set in a very fine state was sold among the curious collection of works of art that belonged to Lord Beaconsfield. It seems that the abnormal fancies of the poet, who saw in every rising sun “not a globe of fire, but millions and millions of the heavenly host,” had a curious affinity for the scarcely less abnormal genius of the writer of “Alroy.” But it does not require that one should be a Disraeli or a Beckford to appreciate such volumes as the original editions of the “Songs” and the “Visions.” Every one who has any sympathy with early Italian art, or with Michael Angelo, or even with the grave figures that adorn an old Greek vase, must find something to admire in the angelic or infernal visions and in the idealized domestic scenes that cover Blake’s pages; and considering how rare and how prodigiously costly are the originals, we have nothing but gratitude for Mr. Muir, who has provided us with such careful and elaborate reproductions. ...

Mr. Muir has apparently followed out Blake’s method to the letter, and he and his friends—the “Songs of Innocence” bears the signatures of W. Muir, Emily J. Druitt, J. D. Watts, Joseph B. Muir, and Anna J. Muir—have succeeded in producing a number of volumes which are extraordinarily close to the originals. All the world does not admire Blake, but, then, an edition of fifty copies is not for all the world, and it will be strange if even in these bad times fifty English and American Blakists cannot be found to prove to the enthusiastic editor that his labour has not been in vain.—THE TIMES, issue 31824 (29 July 1886), 12 col E ("BLAKE IN FACSIMILE").

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OTHER FACSIMILES

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 B.

1932.—Visions of the Daughters of Albion. By William Blake. Reproduced in facsimile from an original copy of the work printed and illuminated by the author in 1793 now in the British Museum. With a note by John Middleton Murry.—London & Toronto : Dent; New York : Dutton.—[4], p., 1 blank leaf, 11 leaves (facsimile), 9-25 p. (“Note”).

Colour facsimile of copy A, the British Museum copy (1793).

Colophon reads: Made at the Temple Press, Letchworth, Great Britain. 

Presumably, there were at one time to be other Visions of the Daughters of Albion: but Blake’s comprehension expanded rapidly, and his chosen form of expression was slow; so that the process of his imagination inevitably outran his once fixed intentions. 

The one Vision of the Daughters of Albion that we have is this pictured story of Oothoon and Bromion and Theotormon, It is one of the simplest, and, in the ordinary sense, one of the most beautiful of all his “prophetic books.” Its symbolism, if we need to use that word at all in respect to it, is unperplexed and unperplexing. We have not to worry our heads unduly over the question: Who is Oothoon? And what do Theotormon and Bromion represent? Their speech betrays them. What they come to be in the prophetic books is another and more difficult matter. (11) 

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.

2002.—Visions of the Daughters of Albion; introduction by Robert N. Essick.—San Marino CA : Huntington Library.

A facsimile edition based on new, state-of-the-art photography of Blake’s delicately coloured plates. The text is transcribed in full, and Essick provides a detailed commentary as well as a bibliography of secondary work on the poem.

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Further reading

G. E. Bentley, Jr.—Blake Books : Annotated Catalogues of William Blake's Writings …and Scholarly and Critical Works about him.—Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977.

David Duff, “Muir’s facsimiles and the missing ‘Visions’ (Blake)”, Blake/An Illustrated Quarterly, vol 37, no 1 (Summer 2003), 32-34.

Geoffrey Keynes.—A bibliography of William Blake.—New York : Grolier Club, 1921.