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Long after his reputation has faded, Edward Young (1683-1765) lives on in unattributed quotations, such as “Procrastination is the Thief of Time.” If his name is known today, it is largely because William Blake was commissioned in 1795 to create a series of framing images around the printed text of Young’s most famous work, the Night Thoughts. This epic poem in nine “Nights” is a nocturnal meditation on the mysteries of Death and Immortality, and was much to the taste of the spiritual eighteenth century. Blake’s admirer the London bookseller and publisher Richard Edwards commissioned 537 watercolors, supplying the artist with an enormous half-sheet of paper, inlaid off-center with a small block of text.
In this eccentric space Young’s metaphors became literal Blakean forms, vividly imagined, echoing illustrations to Blake’s America, a prophecy (1793) and Europe, a prophecy (1794) and confirming the artist Henry Fuseli in his opinion that “fancy is the end and not a means in his designs.” For publication, only 43 of the designs (selected only from the original four Nights) were engraved and published in 1797. A few copies were colored by hand, in two styles, tentatively dated to 1797 and 1805. This Octavo Edition reproduces complete copies representative of each style – one colored by Blake himself – from the Rosenwald Collection at the Library of Congress.
The original books photographed for this digital edition:
114 pages, 43 illustrations, 16 1/2 x 13 inches (419 x 330 mm)
In this eccentric space Young’s metaphors became literal Blakean forms, vividly imagined, echoing illustrations to Blake’s America, a prophecy (1793) and Europe, a prophecy (1794) and confirming the artist Henry Fuseli in his opinion that “fancy is the end and not a means in his designs.” For publication, only 43 of the designs (selected only from the original four Nights) were engraved and published in 1797. A few copies were colored by hand, in two styles, tentatively dated to 1797 and 1805. This Octavo Edition reproduces complete copies representative of each style – one colored by Blake himself – from the Rosenwald Collection at the Library of Congress.
The original books photographed for this digital edition:
114 pages, 43 illustrations, 16 1/2 x 13 inches (419 x 330 mm)
Romantic Revolution
In Edward Young’s lifetime and for a generation more, Night Thoughts had a gigantic success. It was printed and reprinted countless times in Britain, and enjoyed an equal renown abroad. Only Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy enjoyed an equal reputation all over a Europe now enraptured in the age of sentiment, with “Sturm und Drang” and the romantic revival not far off. Blake’s illustrated edition of Night Thoughts, however, marks a moment of revolutionary transition, as it was published only a year before Lyrical Ballads, whose authors, Wordsworth and Coleridge, launched an entirely new view of poetry and its diction that rapidly rendered obsolescent the appreciation and respect once paid to Young.
In Edward Young’s lifetime and for a generation more, Night Thoughts had a gigantic success. It was printed and reprinted countless times in Britain, and enjoyed an equal renown abroad. Only Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy enjoyed an equal reputation all over a Europe now enraptured in the age of sentiment, with “Sturm und Drang” and the romantic revival not far off. Blake’s illustrated edition of Night Thoughts, however, marks a moment of revolutionary transition, as it was published only a year before Lyrical Ballads, whose authors, Wordsworth and Coleridge, launched an entirely new view of poetry and its diction that rapidly rendered obsolescent the appreciation and respect once paid to Young.
Mysterious Margins
Blake’s illustrations for Night Thoughts frame a textblock surrounded by generous margins: who conceived this unusual way of working is not clear. The artist’s experiments with “illuminated printing” had already produced miniature books such as Songs of Innocence and of Experience and The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. In these Blake had interwoven text and designs, the two often overlapping, but maintaining a general pattern of narrower top and inner margins and larger outer and lower ones, conforming in this respect to the traditional distribution of text and decoration in medieval illuminated books.
Blake’s illustrations for Night Thoughts frame a textblock surrounded by generous margins: who conceived this unusual way of working is not clear. The artist’s experiments with “illuminated printing” had already produced miniature books such as Songs of Innocence and of Experience and The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. In these Blake had interwoven text and designs, the two often overlapping, but maintaining a general pattern of narrower top and inner margins and larger outer and lower ones, conforming in this respect to the traditional distribution of text and decoration in medieval illuminated books.
Toning Techniques
The plates in Night Thoughts are ample testimony to Blake’s professional skill as an engraver, the trade to which he had been apprenticed. He did not often get a chance to engrave his own designs, which were often rendered by other engravers (or Blake was himself constrained to engrave the work of other artists). For indeed he was a highly talented engraver, the master of all the techniques of shading that had been developed by the end of the eighteenth century, and capable of highly original techniques of his own devising. All these talents were brought to bear in transferring the bold, calligraphic brush- and pen-work of his designs to the different medium of monochrome prints. In this, toning techniques did duty for the color washes of the drawings, as well as giving an added strength to the varied density of the Indian ink outlines and shading. This particular element of Blake’s virtuosity, both as draftsman and engraver, has not been given sufficient emphasis in consideration of his work on Night Thoughts.
The plates in Night Thoughts are ample testimony to Blake’s professional skill as an engraver, the trade to which he had been apprenticed. He did not often get a chance to engrave his own designs, which were often rendered by other engravers (or Blake was himself constrained to engrave the work of other artists). For indeed he was a highly talented engraver, the master of all the techniques of shading that had been developed by the end of the eighteenth century, and capable of highly original techniques of his own devising. All these talents were brought to bear in transferring the bold, calligraphic brush- and pen-work of his designs to the different medium of monochrome prints. In this, toning techniques did duty for the color washes of the drawings, as well as giving an added strength to the varied density of the Indian ink outlines and shading. This particular element of Blake’s virtuosity, both as draftsman and engraver, has not been given sufficient emphasis in consideration of his work on Night Thoughts.
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