[Rarebooks] fa: WILLIAM BLAKE & MARIA FLAXMAN illustrate WILLIAM HAYLEY - 1803

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, along with other 18th- & 19th-century titles, auctions  
ending Monday, June 20. More details and images can be found at the  
URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://shop.ebay.com/arch_in_la/m.html?_trksid=p4340.l2562

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.

"I am now engaged in engraving six small plates for a new edition of  
Mr. Hayley's Triumphs of Temper, from drawings by Maria Flaxman,  
sister to my friend the sculptor. And it seems that other things will  
follow in course, if I do but copy these well..."—William Blake to  
Thomas Butts, January, 1802.
William Hayley: The Triumphs of Temper, A Poem: In Six Cantos... The  
Twelfth Edition, Corrected. With New Original Designs, by Maria  
Flaxman [and William Blake]. Chichester: Printed by J. Seagrove for T.  
Cadell and W. Davies, 1803. FIRST EDITION THUS. Small 8vo (17 cm) in  
full period tree calf with gilt-stamped spine and morocco spine label;  
[iii]-xii + 165 pp.; woodcut decorations, six engraved plates. Bentley  
471A.

First edition with six engraved plates by William Blake after Maria  
Flaxman. Blake's engravings were commissioned by his rather  
patronizing patron William Hayley, the author of the work, during the  
artist's four-year "Babylonian captivity" at Hayley's estate at  
Felpham (1800-1804). Though little more than glorified job-work, the  
plates are evocative and crisply cut, and Flaxman's darkly fey and  
almost surreal illustrations lend themselves well to Blake's gifts.  
There is a whimsically modern, Edward Gorey-esque feel to several of  
the images. An uncommon Blake title, as most are...