The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

One of William Blake’s most inspired and influential books, now stunningly reproduced in a beautiful facsimile
Among the beautiful and striking illuminated books etched and printed by William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell stands out. Written in 1790 at the beginning of the French Revolution, it represents Blake’s first attempt to create a new system of art, poetry, and philosophy, declaring himself on the side of the devils in a world that was being turned upside down. Although not as well-known as The Songs of Innocence and of Experience, it has strong echoes throughout pop culture and is arguably more influential on later generations of writers, thinkers, and even musicians, from Aldous Huxley drawing on it as a key text to opening the doors of perception, which in turn gave the Doors their name, through to figures as diverse as Salman Rushdie, Benjamin Britten, Olga Tokarczuk, and Keith Haring. Blake’s writing and art immediately throws the reader into a fantastical and surrealist landscape, where the protagonist converses with angels who have thrown their lot in with revolutionary hell, or chats happily with prophets and devils about the nature of God, the universe, and everything. The gloriously illustrated edition, which opens with a poem and takes the form of prose thereafter, is both a humorous satire on religion and morality and expresses Blake’s essential wisdom and philosophy. Produced as a beautiful facsimile, with a new, illuminating introduction, this is a special and thought-provoking gift book.

William Blake (1757–1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognized during his life, Blake has become a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual art of the Romantic Age. Apprentice to a master engraver, Blake studied at the Royal Academy under the guidance of Joshua Reynolds, before later engraving and publishing Songs of Innocence in 1789 and the contrasting Songs of Experience in 1794. Sibylle Erle is chair of the Blake Society and has written extensively on Blake. She was also editor of The Reception of William Blake in Europe (Bloomsbury, 2019) with Morton Paley. Jason Whittaker is the author of multiple books on Blake, most recently Divine Images: The Life and Work of William Blake (Reaktion, 2021) and Jerusalem: Blake, Parry and the Fight for Englishness (Oxford University Press, 2022). He was a journalist for 15 years and writes on Blake and other subjects in a widely accessible style. He is a trustee of the Blake Society.