Ballads, Founded on Anecdotes Relating to Animals, with Prints designed and Engraved by William Blake.
1805. Chichester: J.Seagrave for Richard Phillips, 1805.
Bound with The Death of Abel, "A New Edition," London: Vernor & Hood, 1803, translated from the German of Salomon Gessner by Mary Collyer. 2 vols. in 1. 8vo, (6), 212, (1, index)pp., with 5 plates designed and engraved by Blake; xii, (2), [17]-242 pp. with 4 plates designed and engraved by H. Richter. Contemporary panelled tree calf, rebacked; early ink ownership inscription of Mary Henor(?) on both title pages; small ticket of Subun-so Book Store, Tokyo on front pastedown. Scattered foxing especially to plate margins, board tips rubbed, generally very good.
§ First edition, with plates 1-3 in the second state. An important book in the Blake canon, being his second go at the Ballads after the extremely rare 1802 edition. Bentley, BB, 465. Easson and Essick, WBI VIII. Bindman, CGWB, 403-407.
It is bound here with an 1803 edition of Mary Collyer's wildly popular translation of Gessner's The Death of Abel, first published in 1761. Item #124184
Price: $4,250.00