Lot 274
Blake, William
The Works of William Blake (ed. E. J. Ellis & W. B. Yeats)
Auction: Books & Manuscripts | 01 October 2026 from 10am | Lots 253 to 285
Description
… Poetic, Symbolic, and Critical. London: Bernard Quaritch, 1893. First edition, 3 volumes, large 8vo (25.5 x 15.3cm), original green publisher's cloth elaborately gilt, top edge gilt, frontispieces, numerous illustrations and lithographed facsimiles, light spotting to endpapers and half-titles, light dampstaining to top of pastedown and endpapers of volume 3, bolts partially unopened in all 3 volumes (3)
Footnote
One of 500 unnumbered copies on paper ‘ordinary issue … extra cloth uncut with a gold impression on the front’ of a total edition of 650. W.B. Yeats 'marked down William Blake as a master early on, and with Edwin Ellis produced a large-scale commentary on Blake's prophetic writings in 1893. While often erratic and idiosyncratic, it helped establish the importance of Blake's esoteric verse' (ODNB).