The Book of Los.
1976. London: Trianon Press, 1976.
4to, 5 color plates and commentary. Quarter brown morocco, slipcase. A fine copy.
§ Regular copy #166. Limited to 538 copies including 32 de luxe copies numbered I-XXXII, 480 regular copies numbered 1-480, and 26 copies lettered A-Z reserved for the Trustees of the William Blake Trust and the publishers. Bentley, BBS, p. 62.
The Book of Los is the companion volume to the Book of Ahania. “The poem opens with a lamentation by “Eno aged Mother” over the loss of Edenic pleasures through Urizenic error and the world it creates. The narrative then centers on Los’s anguished responses to that world, including his transformation of the void into matter and his binding of Urizen. The five plates of The Book of Los were etched in intaglio and printed in 1795. There is only one complete copy (A, British Museum), plus a separate impression of Plate 4. The designs on Plates 1-3 and 5 were color printed from the surfaces of copperplates bearing only etched outlines of the pictorial motifs.” (The Blake Archive) (6288). Item #5540
Price: $250.00