A William Blake Milestone: the First Account of His Life
A Father's Memoirs of His Child.
London: T. Bensley for Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, 1806.
Price: $1,500.00
About the item
First edition. Engraved frontispiece by Robert Cromek after the design by William Blake and Haye, and three plates (one folding map).. xlviii, 172 pp. 1 vols. 8vo (25 x 15.5 cm). A William Blake Milestone: the First Account of His Life. UNCUT in the original boards; rebacked in cloth, endpapers renewed. Fine, tall copy. Keynes 80; Bentley, Blake Books, p. 18.
Item #220643
A book of paramount importance to Blake studies. Malkin was a personal friend of William Blake, with whom he shared an interest in radical politics, and on the death of his gifted six-year-old son Thomas in 1802, Malkin commissioned Blake to design the frontispiece for Malkin's FATHER'S MEMOIR. In his Preface to this work, Malkin gives what the DNB calls the "first and fullest" account of Blake's early life and career, and it was with this very tribute to his friend's idiosyncratic genius that Malkin first gave impetus to a more general appreciation of William Blake's art.
