The William Blake Archive is pleased to announce the publication of a digital edition of To the Public, dated “October 10, 1793.” It first came to light in Gilchrist’s Life of Blake, 1863, where it was introduced with a brief heading that described “a characteristic Prospectus issued by Blake.” It had been transcribed from an “original…in engraved writing printed in blue on a single leaf about 11 x 7 ½ inches…obtained only at the last moment” from a “Mr. Frost”-perhaps William Edward Frost, a painter, member of the Royal Academy, and sometime collector of engravings by Blake’s friend Thomas Stothard (Bentley, Blake Books Supplement, page 142). Like several of Blake’s letters, then, his 1793 prospectus is known only from the transcription of unknowable accuracy from Gilchrist’s biography.

The William Blake Archive is pleased to announce the publication of nineteen separate prints designed and etched or engraved by Blake. The original works are housed in seven collections, including the Bodleian Library, British Museum, Robert N. Essick collection, Fitzwilliam Museum, Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and National Gallery of Art, Washington. These separate prints join two others, Deaths Door and George Cumberland’s Card, and four series of prints, all previously published, to complete this important category of Blake’s endeavors as a printmaker.