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The Gates of Paradise

Scheduled for publication this month: a facsimile reproduction of the complete Gates of Paradise, published for the William Blake Trust by the Trianon Press (Chateau de Boissia, Clairvaux, Jura, France).

Volume 1 includes seventeen preliminary sketches from Blake’s Notebook, reproduced in facsimile by collotype, together with Sir Geoffrey Keynes’s introduction, page-by-page explanation and comparative study of all three stages of the work, and a census of every known copy of the two volumes of engravings. In his illuminating text, Sir Geoffrey has outlined the origins of Blake’s project from a series of sixty-four drawings in the Notebook which are listed and described. From these drawings Blake chose seventeen which he engraved and issued in 1793 entitled For Children. The Gates of Paradise. Later, in about 1818, he re-worked all the plates, adding three and issued them under the title For the Sexes. Volume 2 of this edition is a facsimile of the For Children series made from the Lessing J. Rosenwald copy in the Library of Congress, and contains additional states of an earlier version. Volume 3 is a facsimile of the Huntington Library copy of For the Sexes, together with a number of comparative plates from other sources.

The engravings have been reproduced in facsimile by two-tone collotype with the plate mark impressed from hand-bevelled copper plates. The paper is pure rag Arches Vergé. The edition is limited to 700 copies for sale: 50 copies numbered 1 to 50, containing extra plates and material used in printing the book, are bound in full morocco and presented in a cloth slip-case (49 gns.); 650 copies numbered 51 to 700 are bound in cloth and presented in a cloth-covered slip-case (16 gns.).

Print Edition

  • Publisher
  • Department of English, University of California
  • Berkeley, CA, USA
    • Editor
    • Morton D. Paley
    • Contributors
    • Martin Butlin
    • John Buck
    • G.E. Bentley, Jr.
    • Frederic Cummings
    • David V. Erdman
    • John E. Grant
    • Michael J. Tolley

    Digital Edition

    • Editors:
    • Morris Eaves, University of Rochester
    • Robert Essick, University of California, Riverside
    • Joseph Viscomi, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
    • Project Manager
    • Joe Fletcher
    • Technical Editor
    • Michael Fox
    • Previous Project Manager and Technical Editor
    • William Shaw
    • Project Director
    • Adam McCune
    • Project Coordinator, UNC:
    • Natasha Smith, Carolina Digital Library and Archives
    • Project Coordinator, University of Rochester:
    • Sarah Jones
    • Scanning:
    • UNC Digital Production Center
    • XML Encoding:
    • Apex CoVantage
    • Additional Transcription:
    • Adam McCune
    • Jennifer Park
    • Emendations:
    • Rachael Isom
    • Mary Learner
    • Adam McCune
    • Ashley Reed
    • Jennifer Park
    • Scott Robinson
    • XSLT Development:
    • Adam McCune
    • Joseph Ryan
    • William Shaw
    • PHP and Solr Development:
    • Michael Fox
    • Adam McCune
    • Project Assistants:
    • Lauren Cameron,
    • Rachael Isom,
    • Mary Learner,
    • Jennifer Park,
    • Ashley Reed,
    • Adair Rispoli,
    • Scott Robinson
    • Sponsors
    • Funders
    • Blake/An Illustrated Quarterly
    • William Blake Archive
    • Carolina Digital Library and Archives
    • Use Restrictions
    • Copyright © 2015 Blake/An Illustrated Quarterly, all rights reserved. Items in this digital edition may be shared in accordance with the Fair Use provisions of U.S. copyright law. Redistribution or republication on other terms, in any medium, requires express written consent from the editors and advance notification of the publisher. Permission to reproduce the graphic images in this digital edition rests with the owning institutions.