America a Prophecy

1887. Edmonton: William Muir, 1887.

Folio, 18 plates printed in blue. Original wrappers, rebacked, top edge gilt, fine.

§ Uncolored Muir facsimile limited to around 50 copies (of which, according to Keynes in 1921 only 6 were hand-colored). This is copy #3, signed, priced and numbered by Muir.

"In the first of his "Continental Prophecies" (see also Europe and The Song of Los), Blake explores the radical paradigms of political repression and revolt through a highly imaginative treatment of the American Revolution. While historical figures such as Washington and Paine appear, much of the symbolic and thematic weight is (truncated) placed on Blake's own invented mythological figures, including "Albions Angel" and "Londons Guardian" (forces of the British government), Urizen (the god of restrictive reason and the origin of political repression), and fiery Orc (the spirit of revolt). The American Revolution is viewed as a harbinger of universal revolution, epistemological as much as political." (The Blake Archive). Eighteen copies of the original are known to exist.

William Muir's facsimiles of Blake's works were the most ambitious (and in many cases the first) of their kind until the Trianon Press began work for the Blake Trust in 1951. Upon establishing the Blake Press at Edmonton his goals were clear: "[My] desire and intention is to reproduce ALL the important works by Wm Blake that exist in book form and also some of his finest designs and this by methods of working as nearly the same as Blake himself used as the need of maintaining fidelity to his results will allow. I will not use either photography or chromolithography. All outlines are drawn and all the colouring is by hand. I produce fifty copies only of each book and each of them is numbered".

Keri Davies writes "‘Muir’s facsimiles not only made Blake’s works in “Illuminated Printing” accessible for the first time in reliable copies and helped establish Blake’s reputation as visual artist alongside his reputation as poet, but I feel must also have contributed to the most advanced ideas in English art of the 1880s." Bentley, Blake Books, 249j. (Inventory #: 109161)