The William Blake Blog

New editions of Visions of the Daughters of Albion
The William Blake Archive has published two new versions of Visions of the Daughters of Albion. The two new editions, copies E and I, join the nine editions previously published out of a possible seventeen surviving copies of Blake's text. Visions of the Daughters of Albion was first printed by Blake in 1793 and was the prophetic book most influenced by the work and ideas of Mary Wollstonecraft (click here to read more about the relationship between Blake and Wollstonecraft), providing an account of the rape and humiliation of Oothoon that drew comparisons between the domestic and sexual lives of women in eighteenth-century England and slavery. The book consists of eleven relief-etched plates and the new copies were produced during the first printing of 1793, although Blake returned to the book in the mid-1790s and even as late as 1818. Blake used different coloured inks in these two versions - raw sienna in copy E and green in copy I. As the editors of the Blake Archive observe, this was probably to provide variety to his stock of copies and creates delicate effects across the different versions. You can read about the new editions and view these and the other digitised versions online at the Blake Archive.