Since its first publication in 1965, this editionhas been widely hailed as the best available textof Blake's poetry and prose. Now revised, ifincludes up-to-date work on variants, chronology ofpoems and critical commentary by Harold Bloom. An"Approved Edition" of the Center for ScholarlyEditions of the Modern Language Association.

Blake was one of the finest craftsmen of his time, an artist for whom art and poetry were inextricably linked. He was an indepedent and rebellious thinker, who abhorred pretention and falsity in others. His Songs of Innocence are products of this innocent imagination untainted by worldliness, while the Songs of Experience resulted from his feelings of indignation and pity for the sufferings of mankind. The Songs of Innocence and Expereince, containing some of Blake's finest and best-loved poems, are presented here in the form which best satisfied the high expectations of his poetic and artistic aspirations. The fifty-four plates which Blake originallly etched and coloured by hand are faithfully reproduced with the same delicacy and dimensions as the artist created them.