Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul (first published in 1794), an expansion of Blake's first illuminated book Songs of Innocence. The poems and artwork were reproduced by copperplate engraving and colored with washes by hand. Blake republished Songs of Innocence and Experience several times, often changing the number and order of the plates. The spellings, punctuation and capitalizations are those of the original Blake manuscripts. William Blake (1757 – 1827) was a British poet, painter, visionary mystic, and engraver, who illustrated and printed his own books. Blake proclaimed the supremacy of the imagination over the rationalism and materialism of the 18th-century. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age.

A collection of poems describing the curious menagerie of guests and residents, human and animal, at William Blake's inn.

This hardcover gift edition comprises the complete contents of Songs of Innocence, in addition to nine poems from Songs of Experience. Seven color and numerous black-and-white line illustrations grace the text.

In his illuminated books,William Blake combined his handwritten text with his exuberant imagery on pages the like of which had not been seen since the great decorated books of the Middle Ages. To read such books as Jerusalem, America and Songs of Innocence and of Experience in cold letterpress bears no comparison to seeing and reading them as Blake conceived them, infused with his sublime and exhilarating colours. At times tiny figures and forms dance among the lines of the text, flames appear to burn up the page, and dense passages of Biblical-sounding text are brought to a jarring halt by startling images of death, destruction and liberation. This edition, produced together with The William Blake Trust, contains all the pages of Blakes twenty or so illuminated books reproduced in true size, an appendix with all Blakes text set in type and an introduction by the noted Blake scholar, David Bindman. They can at last become part of the lives of all lovers of art and poetry.