Page:Poetical works of William Blake (Sampson, 1913).djvu/23

 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION

aim of this new edition of Blake is to present within the compass of a single volume the main body of his poetry, comprehending under this term not only the purely lyrical poems but also those written in irregular unrimed verse or rhythmed prose. Explicitly, the book contains, in addition to the lyrics brought together in my previous edition, the earlier blank verse poems Tiriel, Thel, and the hitherto unprinted French Revolution, the whole of the minor Prophetic Books (including for the sake of completeness the prose Marriage of Heaven and Hell, the so-called ' Sibylline Leaves ', and the tractates on Natural and Supersensual Religion), together with selections from the three longer Prophecies, The Four Zoas, Milton, and Jerusalem. I add also, that the Reader may not be obliged to seek it elsewhere, the notable passage from the Descriptive Catalogue containing Blake's account of the Canterbury Pilgrims— in Charles Lamb's view the finest criticism ever written of Chaucer's poem.

The text of the lyrical poems is in the main identical with that of the Clarendon Press edition of 1905 and smaller unannotated edition of 1906: one or two trifling errors have been discovered and corrected; in a few cases, where the pieces have been left in rough draft and subjected to many successive changes in the MS., I have not, as before, invariably adhered to the later version when the earlier one seemed preferable; a deleted stanza has sometimes been restored, printed within square brackets, where it seemed necessary to the integrity of the poem, while in a single instance ('My Spectre around me ') I have ventured to insert three unplaced stanzas in the position demanded by the sense. I have also, in the case of the Epigrams and Gnomic Verses, substituted a more convenient classified arrangement of these pieces in place of the strictly paginal sequence of the earlier edition. The additional matter constitutes a new text prepared by me for the present edition from the engraved, letterpress, or MS. originals. xv