Urizen Books The First Book of Urizen/the Book of Ahania/the Book of Los

The last volumes in the series of William Blake's Illuminated Books reveal the writer and artist as a prophet driven by a sense of apocalyptic urgency. Blake conceived and executedThe Continental PropheciesandThe Urizen Booksin the early 1790s, capturing the intellectual and spiritual turmoil of the American and French revolutions. Here, for the first time, the general reader will encounter Blake's most intense vision in reproductions that do justice to the originals, accompanied by texts, comprehensive notes and commentaries, and detailed interpretations of the designs. The Urizen Books, made up of "Urizen," "The Book of Los," and "Ahania," describes the dissemination of the autocratic mythology of Urizen, Blake's inflexibly rationalist and myopic law-giver. These books stand as the author's sensible and considered response to the events of his time. The illuminated text of "Urizen" and the ten full-page illustrations from copy D in the British Museum, never before reproduced, represent a tour de force in Blake's specialist process of color printing. These volumes complete the six-part series of William Blake's Illuminated Books, includingJerusalem,Songs of Innocence and of Experience,The Early Illuminated Books, andMilton, A Poem, all published by Princeton University Press.Blake, William is the author of 'Urizen Books The First Book of Urizen/the Book of Ahania/the Book of Los', published 1995 under ISBN 9780691044163 and ISBN 0691044163.