Romantic Circles Blog

Charles E. Robinson has just brought to our attention an important new Website entitled “British Fiction, 1800–1829: A Database of Production, Circulation, and Reception.”

Produced in Cardiff University’s Centre for Editorial and Intertextual Research, the site “allows users to examine bibliographical records of 2,272 works of fiction written by approximately 900 authors, along with a large number of contemporary materials (including anecdotal records, circulating-library catalogues, newspaper advertisements, reviews, and subscription lists).”

You can find the British Fiction Website at http://www.british-fiction.cf.ac.uk/

NF

The Byron Society of America is pleased to announce two new Websites: one for the Byron Society of America; and the other for the Byron Society Collection at the University of Delaware.

Please go to http://www.english.udel.edu/byron/ where you will find a splash page or gateway to both sites, from each of which you can easily negotiate to the other.

In the Byron Society Website, you will encounter such things as membership benefits and forms, a history of recent Byron papers at the MLA, a list of the first five Leslie A. Marchand Memorial Lectures (with McGann’s lecture available in full text and with others to follow, including the wonderful lecture that Romulus Linney delivered this past Friday), and application forms for travel grants for graduate students.

In the Collection website, you will encounter Byron images and text that will lead you to such things as a donor page, a yet-to-be-developed book-sale page, and a catalogue of many of the items in the Collection, including books, booklets, busts, conference proceedings, engravings, exhibition catalogues, lithographs, manuscripts, sale catalogues, and much else.

We hope that you will use, enjoy, and learn from these websites, both of which will be further developed over the next few months.

Charles E. Robinson, Executive Director
Byron Society of America

The William Blake Archive is pleased to announce the publication of electronic editions of Visions of the Daughters of Albion, copy A (British Museum) and proof copy a (Library of Congress). Like all the illuminated books in the Archive, both the texts and images of these new publications are fully searchable and are supported by our Inote and ImageSizer applications.

Like copies C and J, previously published in the Archive, copy A was produced in Blake’s first printing session for Visions in 1793. Probably to lend variety to his stock of copies on hand, Blake used three ink colors in this first printing: yellow ochre (as in copy A), raw sienna (copy C), and green (copy J). All three copies exemplify his use of semi-transparent washes to color his illuminated books in the early 1790s. Like several other illuminated books in the British Museum collection, the leaves of copy A are mounted close to the image in windows cut in thick paper. The inner edges of these mounts appear in some of our reproductions.

Proof copy a is an unusual, and probably fragmentary, remnant of Blake’s typical proofing of his illuminated prints in black ink (which takes on a brownish hue when thinly printed). This group of just 6 proofs was printed in 1793; they are probably the earliest extant impressions of Visions of the Daughters of Albion. All but the frontispiece and title page have been trimmed within the platemarks to the designs only. Blake very probably printed the entire plates, to check the progress of his work, and a later owner was responsible for trimming off the texts. Yet, even if reduced after they left Blake’s hands, these impressions offer a glimpse into his etching and printing methods.

Morris Eaves, Robert N. Essick, and Joseph Viscomi, editors
Andrea Laue, technical editor
The William Blake Archive