Page:The poetical works of William Blake; a new and verbatim text from the manuscript engraved and letterpress originals (1905).djvu/33

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General Preface
xxvii

6. DGR. The same. Volume ii.

Poems printed in the 'Selections' from Blake's works, given by D. G. Rossetti, in the second volume of Gilchrist's Life. Rossetti rejects some of the changes made in his earlier transcript, but retains others, and not infrequently adopts the readings of Wilkinson. With reference to these and other attempts at emendation introduced by him into Blake's text we may note Rossetti's later statement 'that he would not now, if the work were before him to be done, make so many alterations.' (See WMR's Dante Gabriel Rossetti, p. 165.)

7. Swinb. William Blake: A Critical Essay. By Algernon Charles Swinburne. With illustrations from Blake's designs in facsimile, coloured and plain. J. C. Hotten, London. 1868. 8°.

Contains poems quoted by Swinburne from Blake's published works and from the Rossetti MS. Book. From the latter source Swinburne prints several poems omitted by Rossetti, including the greater portion of 'The Everlasting Gospel.'

8. Shep. The Poems of William Blake. Comprising Songs of Innocence and of Experience together with Poetical Sketches, and some copyright poems not in any other edition. Basil Montague Pickering, London. 1874. 8°.

This edition collects in a single volume Richard Herne Shepherd's earlier text of the Songs of Innocence and [of] Experience, with other poems, 1866 (reprinted in 1868); and that of the Poetical Sketches, 1868, all of which were published by B. M. Pickering. Shepherd was not able to print in his edition any of the poems from the Rossetti MS. His text of the poems included is, however, by far the most accurate of any hitherto published.

9. WMR. The Poetical Works of William Blake, Lyrical and Miscellaneous. Edited with a Prefatory Memoir by William Michael Rossetti. [Aldine Edition.] George Bell and Sons, London. 1874. 8°.

This popular edition has been frequently reprinted. The readings quoted in my footnotes are taken from a copy of the fourth edition, 1883.

10. W. Muir's facsim. Mr. William Muir's coloured facsimiles of the Songs of Innocence and the Songs of Experience. In the footnotes to The Gates of Paradise I refer also to Mr. Muir's text of the prologue and of the