MAKING BLAKE

PART V

CHAPTER 10

Posthumous Printing Stops

This is the third of three related, sequential essays, preceded by Chapters 8 and 9.

Tatham inherited Blake’s works—or, from Linnell’s perspective, unjustly claimed them as his own—when Mrs. Blake died on 18 October 1831 (BR2 00). At that time, he presumably began to move Blake’s “stock of designs,” books, and manuscripts from her apartment at 17 Upper Charlton Street to his residence at 20a Lisson Grove North. Tatham must have been hopeful. He had seen Blake sell finished watercolors to Lawrence for _15 each and Mrs. Blake make the occasional sale, including posthumous copies of America and Europe to Ferguson (price unknown), Songs copy W to Bishop Jebb for _10.10s, a small pen and watercolor and pen and ink drawing to Mrs. S. Smith for _8.8s (But. 53, 134), and a pen and watercolor Shakespeare illustration to Francis Cary. He no doubt knew of Linnell’s acquisition in 1825 of the 12 small illustrations to Paradise Regained for _10.0s, and may have heard of his attempt to sell them to Lawrence for _50 in February 1827 (But. 544), presumably with Blake’s welfare in mind. He probably knew Blake’s evaluation of his books, as given to Cumberland in 1827, and that Blake had evaluated his colored copy of Jerusalem (E) at “Twenty Guineas” (E 784), a work that was now Tatham’s. He may also have known that Blake had evaluated the large color prints at _5.5s each, ten—and possibly 12—of which he inherited (see Viscomi Printed Paintings Chapter 12). In late 1831, selling Blake’s effects must have appeared potentially profitable—and adding to that stock apparently seemed like a good idea.

Nevertheless, Tatham appears to have stopped printing Blake’s works just a year later. No posthumously printed impression has a watermark later than 1832, though that in itself does not date the cessation of posthumous printing. Two significant events occurred in Tatham’s life at this time, however, and either of them could have caused him to stop printing Blake. One was the dogmatic influence of a millenarian sect led by Edward Irving; the other was the financial problems of Charles Heathcote Tatham, his well known and respected designer and architect father. In this essay, I will examine both events and evaluate the possible ways they contributed to the cessation of the posthumous printing of Blake’s illuminated books.

I. Edward Irving

Tatham is reputed to have burned many of Blake’s manuscripts for being diabolically inspired. Bentley collects the pertinent evidence and makes a convincing case that, unfortunately, a holocaust did occur (BR2 558-59). The evidence, such as it is, however, does not reveal exactly when the conflagration occurred, or how long it lasted, or how much or what it consumed. Were the cremation of manuscripts and the cessation of posthumous printing chronologically related but causally exclusive events? Or did Tatham’s reasons for burning manuscripts influence his decision to stop producing Blake’s printed manuscripts? Was Tatham burning manuscripts upon reading them, or was he making a pile for one giant bonfire? In other words, was the conflagration an on-going or a single event? Were any of the metal manuscripts—that is, the copperplates of the illuminated books—also destroyed?

Blake told Crabb Robinson in February 1826 that he had “written more than Voltaire or Rousseau—Six or Seven Epic poems as long as Homer and 20 Tragedies as long as Macbeth” (BR2 496). Tatham avoided the subject of manuscripts in his “Life of Blake,” but in his 11 April 1829 letter to an unknown patron he described Blake as being as productive—in diverse media—as Blake proclaimed to Robinson: “Mr. Blake’s industry was such that I have often heard him say that he has written more than Milton and Shakspeare put together; he has engraved large quantities of plates, and has painted an immense number of elaborate and laborious fresco-pictures, highly finished as Miniatures” (BR2 00).[1] Tatham knows Blake’s comments on fresco from the Descriptive Catalogue, if not also directly from Blake, and he knows the studio’s content that Mrs. Blake brought with her when she resided with him in Spring of 1828. Among Blake’s effects were many copper plates and presumably the large fresco that Blake was working on when he died, a version of The Last Judgment, mentioned in Nollekens as having over a thousand figures (00) and estimated by Butlin to be 7.5 x 5 feet (Butlin 648). But he probably had not yet read Blake’s writings or taken inventory of Blake’s manuscripts, since they were not yet his property.

That relatively few Blake manuscripts that are extant seems to corroborate the many witnesses of Tatham’s admission to having burned manuscripts. In 1862, writing to Rossetti, Ann Gilchrist said that Tatham himself told her that he had “enacted the holocaust of Blake manuscripts—not designs, I think, as I have heard from his own lips.” She says that he “was at that time a zealous Irvingite and says he was instigated to it by some very influential members of the Sect on the ground that Blake was inspired; but quite from a wrong quarter—by Satan himself—and was to be cast out as an ‘unclean spirit.’ Carlyle says he is quite certain Irving himself never had anything at all to do with this” (130-31).

Edward Calvert, though, according to his son, “fearing such a holocaust, had gone ‘to Tatham and implored him to reconsider the matter, and spare ‘the good man’s precious work;’ notwithstanding which, blocks, plates, drawings, and MSS, I understand, were destroyed’” (BR2 559). And a self-proclaimed eye-witness, the artist and collector John Deffett Francis (1815-1901), places the blame on Irving personally. In a copy of Gilchrist’s Life of Blake, on page 367, where Gilchrist describes Blake’s considerable stock of works as having “since been widely dispersed; some destroyed,” Francis wrote: “Why not tell the truth! FT burnt hundreds of them at the desire of Edward Irving who said ‘They were done under the instigation of the Devil’; this I know for I saw it done J D Francis” (BR2 559).[2] Francis’s memory may be more reliable than Carlyle’s assurance to the Gilchrists that his friend Irving, whom he stood by until the preacher embraced talking in tongues, could not have had such an effect on Tatham.

Calvert’s son raises the possibility of copper plates being destroyed, and Francis strengthens the probability that the destruction—however much it was and whatever its duration—occurred before December 1834, when Irving died, and possibly in 1833, when the 18 year old Francis began buying Blake works from Tatham (00). George Richmond, Tatham’s friend, fellow Ancient, and brother-in-law, implies that the destruction may have begun a year earlier, c. 1832. Nearly 30 years after the facts, Richmond told J. C. Strange of a conflagration and alluded to the mind capable of it. He says: “Some years ago 4 of us who knew Blake well resolved to write down all the particulars we knew concerning him—which was done, & formed a considerable number of pages, when one of us who had the acct fell into some fanatical notions and destroyed the papers, flung them on the fire, unhappily” (BR2 723). While “some years ago” does not date Richmond’s biography, the “4 of us” implies the inclusion of Tatham, one of the Ancients, possibly along with Samuel Palmer and Edward Calvert. Tatham’s biography, apparently the only one to survive, was written in c. 1832. Tatham’s “fanatical notions” and the conflagration of manuscripts appear to have already begun around this time, shortly after Mrs. Blake died and while Tatham was printing illuminated books. Perhaps Tatham destroyed the drafts of his colleagues because they deviated heretically from his idea and image of Blake. Perhaps they honestly addressed Blake’s unorthodoxy and expressions of “Gratified Desire” (E 474). No matter. By 1832, Tatham controlled both Blake’s images and image and could destroy texts by Blake that he considered deviant. If Irving’s “fanatical notions” that led to Tatham’s burning his friends’ manuscripts had already begun guiding his actions, then we need to ask if Irving’s influence also affected his thinking about Blake’s “printed manuscripts.”

Tatham did not print The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Visions of the Daughters of Albion, or The Book of Urizen, the books that overtly attacked conventional morality or religion.[3] But he did print America, Europe, and Jerusalem, books filled with sexually explicit imagery and themes. Indeed, images from Jerusalem prepared by Linton in the early 1860s for reproduction in Gilchrist’s Life of Blake were excluded by D. Rossetti and MacMillan, the publisher, for being pornographic (see Viscomi, “Blake after Blake” 00).[4] Tatham may have chosen his set of books because they were large and more pictorial and hence saleable—or because they were commissioned, as may have been the case with Jerusalem for Samuel Boddington, Thomas Butts, and James Vine. But the printing of these works stopped too. Tatham did not print the intaglio plates of For the Sexes (see Chapter 9), but he may have extracted from the copies he inherited (F, G, H, I, L) plate 19 as offensive. Plate 19 may be missing from these copies because it was not printed; Bentley suspects that, as the verso of plate 20, it was overlooked during the printing session (BB 196). But its presence in posthumous copy K, which belonged to Linnell and was thus out of Tatham’s reach, is suspicious. Lines 15-19 read:

Two Horn'd Reasoning Cloven Fiction

In Doubt which is Self contradiction

A dark Hermaphrodite We stood

Rational Truth Root of Evil & Good

Round me flew the Flaming Sword

Gates of Paradise: For the Sexes plate 19

If Tatham extracted plate 19 from his copies of For the Sexes because he found the text offensive, then is it possible that plates from other books were extracted for similar reasons?

As discussed in Chapter 10, Tatham systematically and deliberately extracted the same cluster of Experience plates from Songs copies a, d, e, g, i, and p. The cluster included “The Chimney Sweeper,” “Garden of Love,” “Little Vagabond,” and “A Little Boy Lost.” Could these and the other plates extracted signify Tatham’s objecting to their content? “The Chimney Sweeper” was overtly subversive:

And because I am happy, & dance & sing,

They think they have done me no injury:

And are gone to praise God & his Priest & King

Who make up a heaven of our misery.

(9-12)

“The Garden of Love” is as anti-clerical: “And Priests in black gowns, were walking their rounds, / And binding with briars, my joys & desires” (11-12). “The Little Vagabond” is devilishly clever—or just devilish:

But if at the Church they would give us some Ale…

And God like a father rejoicing to see,

His children as pleasant and happy as he:

Would have no more quarrel with the Devil or the Barrel

But kiss him & give him both drink and apparel.

(5, 13-16)[5]

And “A Little Boy Lost” fails to recognize the “glories” of old or new church:

The Priest sat by and heard the child.

In trembling zeal he siez'd his hair…

And bound him in an iron chain.

And burn'd him in a holy place.

(9-10, 21-22)

If these texts were found heretical, is it possible that Tatham not only pulled the impressions from their copies but also destroyed the plates and covered his destruction with a story about Blake’s copper plates being stolen? According to Gilchrist, “The gentleman [Tatham] from whom they were obtained had once the entire series in his possession; but all save these ten were stolen by an ungrateful black he had befriended, who sold them to a smith as old metal” (Life I 126).[6] Did the destruction of manuscripts extend to the books or to their metal matrixes? One must wonder if the paucity of proofs for Marriage, Visions, and Urizen, in comparison to Europe, Jerusalem, and Songs (the books printed by Tatham) is due to their having met a fiery fate.

The production of Songs, with nine copies presumably printed in 1831 and 1832, appears to have tapered off. With Jerusalem, America, and Europe, production appears to have suddenly stopped. The apparent concurrency of burning Blake’s manuscripts and halting the printing of Blake’s books seems unlikely to have been a mere coincidence. But was there a causal link between cessation of production and “fanatical notions”? At first glance, the answer appears to be “yes.” But look deeper or further in time and the answer changes, because the Experience impressions extracted were not destroyed; they were gradually sold as separate subsets of Songs and as loose impressions in volumes of “Blakeana.” Tatham extracted them as a salesman, not as a censor. By extracting the same cluster six times, Tatham was able to create and diversify his stock of saleable Blake artifacts without printing more plates. Bibliographically speaking, breaking up complete copies of Songs to create saleable subsets of Blake’s Experience was a drastic step, which Tatham could not have taken lightly. Presumably, he would not have taken it at all if he had a press to print the Experience plates separately, or to print more copies of the Songs. Taking that step appears to reflect his desire to continue selling Blake’s prints, which in turn suggests that the loss of the press was not his doing but due to events beyond his control. The absence of theological, technical and/or aesthetic reasons for abridging complete copies of Songs to 40-43 plates supports the idea that printing stopped because the press it required was no longer available.

The idea that posthumous printing stopped simply because Tatham no longer had a press is anticlimactic. But the bibliographical evidence supports it, not only in the abridging of Songs to create subsets of Experience plates, but also in the form of Songs copy h, a composite copy. Among the ten completed posthumous copies of the Songs—copies a, b, c, d, e, f/j, g, h, i, p—copy h is the exception, not the rule. None of the other copies was compiled from piles of impressions in different inks of varying quality from different printing sessions. They were printed per copy in a uniform ink on uniform sized leaves. Copy h is a composite copy made up of mostly discarded impressions from at least three printing sessions. Compiling miscellaneous leaves was another way for Tatham to extend his saleable stock after realizing he could not print more. Tatham cobbled together copy h and included three duplicates for added value. The very existence of copy h signifies the absence of a printing press, because had Tatham been able to provide better impressions, he would have. Copy h signifies Tatham having to scavenge the studio to put together one more—and presumably—last copy of Songs to sell (see Chapter 10). Songs copy h was probably Tatham’s first effort—preceding the extractions—to increase his stock of Blake books without printing more impressions.

Does Tatham’s stock, like the composite and abridged copies comprising it, reveal anything significant? Generally speaking, stock is produced in anticipation of demand and production is stopped when demand is wanting. Perhaps with stock in hand, Tatham had more supply than demand and stopped production as a business decision. That kind of stoppage, though, does not explain a permanent cessation in production. It only raises another question: why didn’t Tatham resume printing after selling books to Thomas Butts, James Vine, Samuel, Hannah, and Thomas Boddington, Sir Robert Peel, James Ferguson, and William Odell Elwell? Even if Tatham initiated a hiatus in printing, the failure to resume printing any of the books suggests either an unwillingness or an inability to do so. Somehow, Tatham either deliberately relinquished or inadvertently lost the means of production. Knowing which is crucial. Did Tatham decide to discontinue printing Blake? Or was that decision made for him by outside events? The bibliographical evidence indicates an inadvertent loss of the press around 1832, which biographical evidence strongly supports.

II. Charles Heathcote Tatham

In September 1827, Mrs. Blake moved from 3 Fountain’s Court to Linnell’s studio at 6 Cirencester Place, Fitzroy Square, to reside with Linnell. Her printing press preceded her by about two weeks (see Chapter 9). By the end of March 1828, she had moved to Tatham’s, presumably taking all her belongings, including the press. Tatham was still living with his parents and seven or eight of his siblings at 34 Alpha Road, Lisson Grove, in Marlybone, a new development west of Regents Park. This was a large house that belonged to his father, Charles Heathcote Tatham, who was an important neoclassical designer of ornaments, furniture, and silverware, as well as a successful architect. “He is sometimes mentioned as the ‘Father’ of the Regency style of furniture, and was Architect to King William IV. Furniture designed by him for Carlton House and Brighton Pavilion is now at Buckingham Palace - two magnificent chairs are in the Throne Room” (DNB 2004).[7] Tatham Sr. also had a house at 1 Queen Street, Curzon Square, in Mayfair, rated at £66 on a block where the other houses averaged £120. He used this house as his office and studio, from 1809 till 1832 (see Appendix).

Whitehead has reasonably proposed that Tatham and Mrs. Blake lodged there, rather than at Alpha Road, in rooms above the studio or office, with Tatham probably spending weekdays there (82). Mrs. Blake stayed in Mayfair till late March or early April 1829, when she moved to 17 Upper Charlton Street, Fitzroy Square (Whitehead 00). She appears to have printed two copies of America and two copies of Europe that spring, either just before leaving Mayfair, or just afterwards, a printing session possibly in response to a commission from James Ferguson (see Chapter 9). During the hiatus in printing that followed, c. April 1829 to October 1831, the printing press appears to have remained in the Mayfair studio, along with the illuminated plates and printing supplies. She presumably retained access to the studio and brought Blake’s other works—the drawings, manuscripts, paintings, sketches, books—with her to the new apartment, where she made “occasional sales.”

In effect, Tatham arranged for Mrs. Blake’s lodging rather than provided it. The person responsible for providing it was Tatham Sr., who knew Blake from at least 1799, when he acquired America copy B, inscribing on the verso of the title plate: “From the author / to C. H. Tatham Octr 7 /1799” (BB 100).[8] And Blake had copies of Tatham’s Three Designs for the National Monument (1802) and Etchings, Representing the Best Examples of Ancient Ornamental Architecture, 1799 [-1800], neoclassical line drawings that Tatham had etched himself—and which had become an important and influential source book for architects and designers. It had just come out in a new edition in 1826 (BB 697).[9] With C. H. Tatham paying the rates where Mrs. Blake appears to have resided, “Catherine would technically have been his lodger. It is therefore likely that Tatham Sr. played an instrumental role in sheltering and employing her” (Whitehead 83). With Mrs. Blake residing at the Mayfair house for a year and the press most likely remaining there after she moved, C. H. Tatham figures prominently into the narrative of posthumous printing.

C. H. Tatham was only 55 when Blake died and would have been 56 or so when assisting Mrs. Blake. He had been trained in drawing—and presumably etching—by the engraver John Landseer, and collected prints since 1793, when he inherited “a valuable collection of prints.”[10] He was still an active designer, still exhibiting designs at the Royal Academy (53 designs between 1797 and 1836).[11] He probably would have taken much delight in having a rolling press in his studio in Mayfair. At his Alpha Road home, he hosted many gatherings of artists; indeed, it had become a “focus of artistic activity” (DNB 2004?), with visitors including Benjamin Robert Haydon, who boarded in the early 1820s at the house of Tatham’s sculptor friend, John Charles Felix Rossi, at 21 Lisson Grove North, as well as Linnell, Blake, Richmond, Palmer, Calvert, and presumably others of the Ancients, such as Welby Sherman, all friends of his sons Arthur and Frederick.[12] In 1827 Richmond had engraved The Shepherd and The Fatal Bellman (1827), and Calvert and Sherman were also engravers. Tatham Sr. himself, much like his friend, John Linnell, would have made an excellent devil in the printshop.[13]

In 1824, Blake met the 15 year-old George Richmond at the Alpha Road home, brought there by Linnell for that purpose (Life I 297). On 15 March 1827, Blake wrote Linnell to tell him that he “saw M^r Tatham Sen^r yesterday he sat with me above an hour & lookd over the Dante he expressd himself very much pleasd with the designs as well as the Engravings” (E 782). The visit appears to have been at Fountain Court and is further testimony of Tatham’s senior’s interest in Blake and, presumably, “regard for Blake’s memory,” which he no doubt shared with other “staunch friends like Mr. Richmond, Nollekens Smith and others” wanting to help Mrs. Blake (Gilchrist, Life I 365). The evidence examined here indicates that he, too, offered a helping hand, in the form of a secure space for her and the contents of Blake’s studio for about a year, and studio space for the press and plates and for her to work while she lived at 17 Upper Charlton Street. These were arrangements the son, presumably wanting to appear the gracious benefactor, concealed, as he had concealed in his “Life of Blake” Linnell’s generosity in helping Mrs. Blake immediately after Blake’s death (BR2 495n). He has not been alone in concealing C. H. Tatham’s role in Blake’s biography. Leslie Stephens in the 1895 DNB records Richmond and Palmer as meeting Blake at Linnell’s house in Hampstead, despite Gilchrist’s account. Richmond’s son, however, verified Gilchrist’s account: “The home of Mr Tatham the architect, was a centre for the visits of remarkable men, and prominent among them was William Blake a the period when he was living at 3, Fountain Court. My father met him for the first time at Mr Tatham’s House in Alpha Road, St John’s Wood” (Sterling, 1926, p. 24).[14] Nevertheless, the 2004 DNB does not mention the place of their meeting. Tatham senior appears to have been erased from modern Blake studies, except by Whitehead, who recognized his hand in helping Frederick Tatham help Mrs. Blake (00).

III. 34 Alpha Road and 20 Lisson Grove North

On 13 January 1834, after a few days illness “Harriet, [his] beloved wife” died (The Times). That same year, Tatham Sr. “fell into pecuniary difficulties; his house and his collection of objects of interest were sold” (DNB 1895), and “much of the latter went to Sir John Soane's Museum, where it has since remained” (DNB 2004). Both of these DNB statements are wrong. C. H. Tatham’s “pecuniary difficulties” had been building throughout the 1820s and culminated in 1832, not 1834, his collections and household furniture were sold at Christie’s on 9-10 July 1833, and Soane’s Museum acquired only four lots (see Appendix). The date when Tatham vacated his Alpha Road home is what concerns us here. According to the Marylebone Rate Books for 1832 (C/73, reel 62), Tatham vacated 34 Alpha Road in the fourth quarter of the year, between 29 September and Christmas of 1832. He is not listed in the rate book for 1833; in place of his name is an “E” signifying empty and a note “xs/33,” signifying that it was still empty at Christmas 1833 (MRB 1833 H 103, reel 66). The same marks appear in the 1834 Rate Books, and it appears that the house remained empty till sold in 1835. According to Galinou, “despite this downsizing Tatham built up rent arrears. An 1835 rent account shows that Tatham’s premises were back in the hands of [Alexander] Birnie, the original developer of this part of the [Eyre] estate” (478).

Tatham vacated his office the same year. According to the St. George Hanover Square Rate Book for 1832 (C/651, reel 503), Tatham had vacated his Mayfair office sometime during 1832. His name, “Tatham Ch Heathcote,” was crossed out and “Day, William” written over it. But it is not clear when that was done; the earliest would have been 31 March, and the latest would have been Christmas.[15] How long he remained in residence in 1832 is not known, because the rates were being paid and no arrears were accrued, but he was certainly gone by the end of the year.[16] C. H. Tatham’s move from both studio and home sometime in 1832 no doubt created much turmoil for the Tatham family and were life-changing events for all its members. But the loss of the Mayfair studio is particularly significant in the narrative of posthumous printing, because the studio presumably housed the press that Tatham had used to print posthumous copies of illuminated books. The loss of the studio deprived Tatham of the press as well as the space for printing Blake.

If, as argued here, Mrs. Blake’s press entered Tatham Sr.’s studio by April 1828 and remained there when she moved to her small apartment in April of 1829, then Tatham’s closing the studio in 1832 seems the most likely reason posthumous printing stopped. The two events—the closing of the studio and the cessation of printing—appear causal, not coincidental.[17] Posthumous printing appears to have stopped because F. Tatham could not continue. To have continued would have required him to move the press to his studio, which seems unlikely because, according to the Marylebone Rate Books, he appears to have moved from his house at 20b Lisson Grove North by the end of 1832 and to have vacated his studio at 20a Lisson Grove North in early to mid 1833 (see Appendix). Tatham presumably knew sometime in 1832 exactly when his father was going to vacate the Mayfair studio and may have decided then to move as well. Hence, the idea of taking on a heavy printing press upon the studio’s closing—moving the press short term—may have seemed impractical and unwise. Whatever new studio space awaited him, it was unlikely to match what he had at 20a Lisson Grove North or 1 Queen Street, Mayfair.

That anticipation of a reduction in workspace appears to have been realized. Tatham’s next known address was 18 Charles Street, Middlesex Hospital, where he was recorded in the Royal Academy exhibition catalogue from 1835 to 1839 (see Appendix). This property was empty in 1833, but for 1834 and the years Tatham used the address for the Royal Academy John Wilson was paying the rates for a house rated at £68 (MRB reels 64, 67, 70, 73). Tatham painted Wilson’s children as one of his six exhibited works for 1838 (Graves VII 325). The Charles Street apartment appears to have been Tatham’s studio as well as residence. All 22 works Tatham exhibited from that address appear to have been portraits, which in turn suggests that he was now working primarily in crayons, graphite, and watercolors. These media are less demanding (and disruptive) of space than printmaking, oil painting, and sculpture (see Chapter 9); conversely, restricted space can force artists to work in alternative media and sizes.

IV. The Auction and Sale

C. H. Tatham’s auction at Christie’s was a sad affair, filled with the kinds of objects characteristic of an estate sale, items acquired over a long and successful life and sold only upon the owner’s death. The catalogue’s title is misleading: A catalogue of the valuable and interesting collection of architectural and other drawings, books, and books of prints, bronzes, marbles, Greek pottery, and some furniture, of C. H. Tatham, Esq.[18] “Some” furniture is a misnomer; as noted, Tatham, who designed furniture for the family firm of Tatham, Bailey & Sanders, had put up enough furniture (a great deal of it in mahogany and presumably from both the office and house) to take up the auction’s entire first day. Among the 134 lots were presses, but not the printing type. There was a mahogany “press with folding doors” (lot 83) and a “painted press, with folding-doors” (108), which were “large (usually shelved) cupboards,” often placed in “a recess in the wall, for holding linen, clothes, books, etc., or food, plates, dishes, and other kitchen items” (OED), in addition to “a large oak table with flaps, and an oak linen-press” (129). Evidence of the salons that Blake may have attended was present, in the forms of “a fine-toned upright piano-forte by Hutton, in a rosewood case” (52) and “two mahogany music-stands, and a ditto stool” (57).[19]

No Blake works were sold in the auction, but many of Tatham’s architectural drawings and prints were. The walls came down, in the form of “Architectural Designs by Charles H. Tatham, Esq Framed and Glazed” (lots 123 – 133), and the study was emptied of its portfolios and “scrapbooks.” A few of particular interest were “a volume, containing 180 drawings from antiquities in Rome, by C. H. Tatham, Esq.” (117); a volume of 90 of his “original drawings” (118), another volume containing “163 drawings and prints of antiquities” (119), “a scrap book, containing 138 sketches made in Italy, etc. by C. H. Tatham, Esq.” (120), “a scrap book, containing 39 drawings from antique fragments in the collection of Mr. Holland, by C. H. Tatham, Esq.” (121), and “a large scrap book with leaves” (122). Tatham withdrew lots 117 and 119. He presented the portfolio of lot 117 to Soane on 23 July 1833 as a portfolio of architectural drawings of Greenwich Hospital (see Appendix).

The 9-10 July 1833 Christie’s auction may not have been Tatham Sr.’s only sale. Sixteen days after the auction, Linnell recorded in his journal, for Friday 26 July 1833: “to Lisson Grove to look at F. Tatham’s effects. on sale” (BR2 556). On its face, this entry is odd, given that in March of 1833 Linnell intended to take legal action against Tatham for his claiming Blake’s effects as his own and had refused to meet with him (BR2 00; see Appendix). Moreover, Linnell had stopped talking and writing to Tatham two years earlier, after Tatham requested that he pay Mrs. Blake more for the Dante water color designs than he had already paid (Anne Gilchrist 00). Also on 18 March, writing George Cumberland, Linnell refused to acknowledge Tatham by name. Referring to Blake’s plates, he says: “As to Mr Blake’s works I do not think any person ever possessed a complete set—not even Blake himself—what has become of his plates I know not—as Mrs Blake left all she had not sold to a person who has since that [time] become a Bankrupt or something like it and I suppose has disposed of what he had” (BR2 554, my emphasis). Is Linnell describing Tatham Sr. or son—or conflating the two? Linnell apparently had heard rumors of Tatham Sr.’s insolvency, or inferred as much from his having vacated both office and house by this time—of having to “mortgage his property,” as Linnell was later to say. No evidence exists of Frederick Tatham’s insolvency, though perhaps Linnell interpreted the sale of “F. Tatham’s effects”—or even Tatham’s claim on Blake’s effects—as evidence of his desperately needing money.[20]

Linnell’s comments to Cumberland are intriguing. They could be interpreted as Linnell acknowledging that Blake’s plates and press had been at the Mayfair studio, the last place Mrs. Blake lived before moving to her own apartment. Indeed, with Mrs. Blake having moved in spring of 1828 from Linnell’s Cirencester studio to C. H. Tatham’s Mayfair studio, Linnell would have assumed that C. H. Tatham’s was where Mrs. Blake had “left” the press and plates. Linnell says she “left” the plates to a person who has since become bankrupt, which we interpret to mean that she left them to Tatham upon her death, as part of an inheritance, and that he had become bankrupt by March of 1833. But Linnell qualifies his statement, saying that she “left” only what “she had not sold,” implying, it seems, that Mrs. Blake had sold plates while alive. Or was he referring to what had been printed from those plates, such as the copies of America and Europe she printed in 1829 but were apparently sold after she died to—according to Samuel Palmer—Sir Robert Peel (BB 105)? Whether Linnell was referring to prints or plates, both would have remained where she left them when she moved and thus to have become F. Tatham’s property. They would, however, have also become the property of C. H. Tatham, who owned the studio and was the one rumored to have “become a Bankrupt or something like it.” Linnell appears to have conflated father and son and to have supposed that one of them “disposed of what he had” upon vacating the studio. Linnell may have actually seen the press in Mayfair. He consulted with Tatham Sr. in 1829 about his plans for his new house, presumably at Tatham’s Mayfair office.[21]

As discussed in Chapter 9, no material evidence in the form of posthumous books or prints proves Mrs. Blake took illuminated plates to her apartment, let alone the rolling press. The hiatus in posthumous printing between the books she appears to have printed and those printed by Tatham starting in 1831 coincides with the two and half years she resided at Upper Charlton Street. From Linnell’s perspective in March of 1833, Mrs. Blake did indeed appear to have left Blake’s plates at C. H. Tatham’s studio before his becoming “a Bankrupt or something like it” and thus in the literal (if not legal) hands of F. Tatham. One must wonder if the plates—all but the ten (with at least five etched on both sides of the plate) cast as electrotypes for the Life—were sold by Mrs. Blake, were “stolen by an ungrateful black [Tatham] had befriended, who sold them to a smith as old metal” (Life 126), or were sold or “disposed of” by Tatham or his father when emptying the Mayfair studio? If sold or stolen, then we have our answer to why posthumous printing stopped: without plates there was nothing to print. If, on the other hand, the plates were neither stolen nor sold, then the probable cause for the cessation of posthumous printing was the loss of the machine needed to print the plates. Without the press, the eventual sale of the copper plates by someone was probably inevitable.

Linnell’s note in his journal—“to Lisson Grove to look at F. Tatham’s effects. on sale”—presumably records what he had done that day and not what he intended to do. If so, then he appears not to have acquired anything from the sale, for nothing is listed after the note. The sale itself may have been motivated by F. Tatham’s move from his house at 20b Lisson Grove North, by the end of 1832, and it may possibly have been held at his studio at 20a Lisson Grove North, which Tatham appears to have retained for the first part of 1833 (see Appendix). When he left his studio, he was £3.2.8 in arrears for community rates (e. g., monies for the poor, cleaning, repairing, and lighting streets and highways, etc.). These rates were collected on 21 June, but Tatham’s total was recorded in the column for “uncollected due to / Empty House” (illus. 00). Tatham appears to have vacated his studio before the monies were collected, but given the date of his sale perhaps he vacated after 26 July 1833 and left owing his rates. Alternatively, because “Lisson Grove” is an area, like Soho or Bloomsbury, and not just a street, and it includes Alpha Road, which runs into Lisson Grove Road (see map, illus. 00), the sale of “Tatham’s effects,” just 16 days after C. H. Tatham’s auction at Christie’s, may have been held at 34 Alpha Road, just a few blocks away. At the very least, a few circumstantial facts suggests that the sale included items from both households and some of Tatham’s books once belonging to Blake.

First is the inscription on the flyleaf of Blake’s copy of Swedenborg’s Wisdom of Angels, concerning Divine Love and Divine Wisdom:

The Ms. Notes by Blake the Artist—acc s[a]le

Mr. Tatham (an architect) a friend of

Blake, from whose possession the Volume

came. Jan. 1. 1839.

(BR2 556)[22]

Bentley is probably right that the date here is of the note itself and not the date of purchase (BR2 556n), but he may be mistaken to assume that the buyer meant Frederick and not Charles. Second, this book was acquired by A. G. Dew-Smith, who also owned C. H. Tatham’s copy of America [B] (BB 00).[23] For America copy B and the Swedenborg volume once belonging to F. Tatham to enter the same collection suggest that the two books may share a provenance in C. H. Tatham or a combined sale at 34 Alpha Road.[24] Third, Swedenborg’s companion volume, The Wisdom of Angels Concerning the Divine Providence, was acquired by Samuel Palmer, the very “scholarly artist” and son of a bookseller.[25] Palmer signed it with his monogram; he owned at least six other books from Blake’s library, two of which he signed and dated “Samuel Palmer 1833.” Palmer’s date suggests his source was the same sale as Divine Love and Wisdom, the probable source for his other books as well. Fourth, the sale, as noted, comes an opportune 16 days after the Christie’s auction, giving Tatham Sr. an opportunity to sell what was bought in or did not sell or was too small to make the auction.

Whether the sale was held at Tatham’s studio or Tatham’s Sr.’s empty house, “F. Tatham’s effects” seem likely to have sold with C. H. Tatham’s effects. What seems highly unlikely, though, is for the printing press to have been brought to the Lisson Grove sale. As with many large, old heavy objects, selling or leaving them where they are, instead of moving them, is the best—or only—option. For whatever reason—lack of space, the immanent relocating of his residence, spousal disapproval, bad timing—F. Tatham did not move the press at the end of 1832 from Mayfair to his Lisson Grove studio or new apartment. Tatham appears to have stopped printing not because he lost interest in Blake’s books or illuminated prints, but because he lost the means of production and could not replicate the situation he had at his father’s studio.

The convergence of biographical and bibliographical facts supports this idea, as does an undated letter Tatham wrote to Sir John Soane. The letter, presumably written after his father’s letter to Soane, which was dated 5 July 1833, reveals his father’s influence and reads like a response to the loss of the press and whatever revenue stream it may have represented. It appears also to confirm Tatham’s inability to replenish that specific stock.

3 Grove Terrace

Lisson Grove

Sir,

May I take the liberty to inform you that at the demise of the Widow of the celebrated William Blake the Engraver & Fresco Painter (whose life has been written by Cunningham in the Lives of Painters and by Smith in the latter Volume of the Life of Nollekens). I became possessed of all the residue of his Works being Drawings Sketches & Copper Plates of a very extraordinary description.

Hearing that your Collection is deservedly celebrated I beg to say that should you wish to add any of this very great mans productions to it I shall be happy to offer any portion of them to you at a reasonable rate.

There are none now for Sale nor is it likely there will be but these in my possession

Should you wish to see any of his very beautiful Drawings I should be happy of the honour of yr Commands for that purpose –

I have the honour to be

Sir

Yr very obedient & humble servant

Frederick Tatham

Sculptor[26]

Tatham wisely emphasized drawings, which Soane collected in very large quantities (e. g., over 9000 drawings from the office of Robert and James Adams in 57 albums entered Soane’s collection in 1833). He correctly noted that Blake’s drawings of the kind he had, unlike illuminated books and the commercial engravings, were not “for Sale” elsewhere. Tatham’s comment that “nor is it likely there will be but these in my possession” refers explicitly to his stock of drawings, but, presumably, the prints from the “Copper Plates,” which were also never to be replenished, may have been implied, in which case the comment appears to acknowledge his recent loss of the press. With the loss of the press, coupled, perhaps, with the realization of how little money the books could bring in, relative to the effort required to produce them (see Chapter 9), Tatham was forced to rethink how best to sell his Blakes. He does not mention illuminated books to Soane, expressing instead his desire to sell his Blake collection in “portions,” which may represent a new sales strategy, from sales of single or paired illuminated books and single finished drawings, the strategy favored by Mrs. Blake (Gilchrist, Life 00), to “volumes” or “scrap books” of prints and drawings, the terms used by his father and others for groups of miscellaneous drawings and prints not highly valuable or sellable individually.

Tatham implies that he could assemble a volume or scrap book of miscellaneous drawings, presumably of the size Soane had acquired of C. H. Tatham. This may have been the genesis of Tatham’s compiling over the next decade or so scrap books or portfolios, of what Puttick and Simpson in 1863 and then Quaritch in 1864 refered to as “Blakiana,” for other collectors.[27] Examples of such volumes include what John Ruskin described in c. 1843 to George Richmond as a “portfolio of Blake drawings,” which appears to have had hundreds of drawings and sketches, all from Tatham (see Viscomi, Printed Paintings Chapter 12). Another extensive “scrap book” of Blake items included 122 prints and proofs and the manuscript of the “Order of the Songs,” which G. A. Smith acquired by 1853; Arthington also acquired a volume with 67 impressions and proofs, including proofs of The Book of Thel; an extra-illustrated volume of Gilchrist’s Life of Blake used a core of 100 or more prints that Pearson had acquired, most likely en mass in a scrap book from Tatham (BB 00, 00, 00). The prints used in what appear to have been extra-illustrated Gilchrist’s Life and Swinburne’s Critical Essay that G. A. Smith sold at Christie’s 1 April 1880 may also have come from a Blakeana volume.[28]

Despite Cumberland’s friends thinking Blake’s prices were too high, prices for illuminated books were too low to have made posthumous copies profitable for Mrs. Blake (see Chapter 9). As noted, Songs copy P in 1826 sold at auction for £1; copy BB sold for £1 in 1830. Tatham, a fine watercolorist in his own right, did not color the Blake plates he printed. The increased time, labor, and materials required of such finished copies was apparently not worth the investment. Nor could he have equaled what Blake had done. In this regard, he may not have long regretted the loss of the press—or his changed relation to Blake’s works, from producer and seller to exclusively a seller. There was more money in selling groups of prints and drawings than in selling single copies of the books. The £100 Ruskin paid for the “portfolio of large Blake drawings” is evidence of that (see Viscomi, Printed Paintings, Chapter 12).

CONCLUSION

The loss of the family’s financial security and home and the resulting turmoil in 1831 and 1832, shortly after his marriage, estrangement with Linnell, and Mrs. Blake’s death, may have contributed to his susceptibility to Irving’s influence. How long that influence manifested itself at Blake’s expense is not known, but it appears to have been in place as early as 1832, around the time he and three other “Ancients” drafted biographical sketches of Blake. Irving’s influence is blamed for convincing Tatham to burn certain of Blake’s manuscripts, though the number of manuscripts and duration of this abhorrent and aberrant behavior are not known. I have raised the questions of whether it might also have been responsible for the cessation of posthumous printing, which also appears to have been in 1832 or 1833, and also behind Tatham’s extracting the same cluster of Experience plates from the Songs.

At first glance, the answer to both questions appears to be “yes.” But the extracted Experience impressions were not destroyed; they were sold separately and in volumes and scrapbooks of prints. Tatham’s motivation for abridging completed copies is not self-evident. As noted, technical or aesthetic reasons played no part. It appears to have been Tatham’s way to produce more stock. That he sold the extracted Experience plates—and continued to sell separate life-time and posthumous impressions from America, Europe, and Jerusalem in volumes of “Blakeana”—instead of destroying them supports the thesis that cessation was due to his inability to print rather than his inability to resist “fantastical notions.” Tatham’s criteria for which Experience plates to extract eludes me, but the general reason to abridge copies of Songs seems straightforward enough: to increase the number of saleable goods when printing more was not an option. Just as prints evince a press, the absence of new prints—in the form of composite and abridged copies and clusters of extracted impressions—evinces the absence of a press. These copies and clusters are the effects of—and responses to—the inability to produce more impressions. They are signs that Tatham lost his press rather than of him deciding to no longer print Blake.

The press appears to have been in his father’s studio in Mayfair, brought there by Mrs. Blake in 1828, when she was under the care of Tatham and his father. The closing of the Mayfair studio in 1832 forced the moment to a crisis. Tatham’s options appear to have been to let the press go or to relocate it. He, or his father, could have sold it for the short term gain—assuming James Lahee was mistaken about old “wooden presses are quite gone by now” (BR2 467). They may have preferred immediate funds to whatever lost future funds might (but only might) be achieved through future printings. Or, failing at that, they may have left it behind. I think Tatham, anticipating the momentous effect that closing the Mayfair studio would have on his plans to print Blake books, and knowing that he would not be able to retrieve it, responded by printing six copies of Songs in black (see Chapter 10). Anticipating the loss of the press is not the same thing as deciding to stop printing Blake. He may very well have wanted to continue printing the plates, but knowing, as he presumably did, that he would be vacating both his own premises and studio shortly after he father vacated his, he decided that moving the press for such a short while was not a good idea.

Perhaps it is more accurate to say that Tatham’s not having a viable place for the press after the closing of the Mayfair studio made that decision for him. For the next few years, he appears not to have had a studio separate from his living quarters. Such consolidation may have been necessitated financially, but it came at a cost. As Anne Gilchrist told W. M. Rossetti, Tatham was “the son of an architect of some repute . . . and was himself originally a sculptor. He abandoned that early, and took to portraits in crayons” (129). The change in careers appears to have been directed in part by diminished family fortunes and the loss of a separate studio. Working small in crayons and watercolors required less space and was less demanding on others around him. It is probably safe to say that his spouse, unlike Mrs. Blake, was not going to pass her “days and nights” with her artist husband, a large printing press, oily inks, solvents, stacks of paper, plates, rags, et al. “in the same room where they grilled, boiled, stewed, and slept” (Gilchrist, Life I 00). Tatham’s choice may have come down to moving Blake’s press to his apartment or domestic tranquility.

.

---

[1] list frescos or temperas Tatham may have seen or possessed

[2] John Deffett Francis, like Richmond and Tatham, was a portrait painter, though 6 and 10 years younger than they. Ironically, he would have been around the ages of Richmond or Palmer when they first met Blake, 15 and 18 respectively, had he witnessed the destruction. He became a very a successful art collector, with a considerable number of prints and drawings by Blake, many acquired from Tatham, beginning in c. 1833 (00).

[3] Bentley correctly notes that Tatham avoided Blake’s books that attacked conventional morality and religion, but he is mistaken about “Tatham’s authenticating signature on many surviving drawings indicat[ing] that he thought these were less Satanic—or perhaps more saleable” (BR2 560). The works that Tatham “vouched” for were sketches and scraps that he sold after 1863, when the Life of Blake expanded Blake’s market (see Viscomi, Printed Paintings, Chapter 12).

[4] Regarding Blake’s Visions, Anne Gilchrist said: “it would be perfectly useless to attempt to handle this side of Blake’s writings—that Mr. Macmillan is far more inexorable against any shade of heterodoxy in morals than in religion—and that in fact, poor ‘flustered propriety’ would have to be most tenderly and indulgently dealt with…” (128).

[5] My friend Robert Essick informs me that these lines were the probable cause for “Little Vagabond” being excluded from the second printing of the Pickering edition of the Songs, 1839.

[6] Apparently, only ten plates from Songs remained of Blake’s illuminated plates by 1860, which accounted for fifteen of the sixteen electrotypes. Plate 29, the Experience title plate, was missing and William Linton, the illustrator of the Life of Blake, made a kerigraphic facsimile of it, possibly using the impression in Songs copy T, then in the British Museum, as his model (Viscomi, “Blake after Blake,” 00).

[7] C. H. Tatham was an important furniture designer, “very involved with the family firm of Tatham Bailey & Sanders” (Galinou 478). His brother Thomas (1763 – 1817) was apprenticed to John Linnell, the great 18^th century cabinet maker and a distant relative of the Tathams. Tatham’s brother John was a solicitor, who “dealt with the legal side of Tatham’s transactions” (Galinou 478).

[8] The signature and handwriting on the flyleaf of America copy B matches the signatures and lettering in letters C. H. Tatham wrote to John Soane that are in the Soane Museum.

[9] Tatham Sr. “spent two years working on the 102 plates showing the best examples from Holland's collection, and published in 1799 Etchings of ancient ornamental architecture drawn from the originals in Rome and other parts of Italy during the years 1795 and 1796. Of the 210 subscribers, almost a third were architects and craftsmen.” A second edition, containing more than a hundred plates, appeared in 1803, and a German translation was published at Weimar in 1805. A third edition was published in London in 1810, often reprinted. In 1806 Tatham published the companion Etchings representing fragments of antique Grecian and Roman architectural ornament; and in 1826 the two works were issued together (2004 DNB ON CHT).

[10] A transcription of Tatham Sr.’s unpublished autobiography, written in 1826, is online at the Tatham Family History website.

[11] C. H. Tatham did not exhibit in 1832, 1833, or 1834, and, as we will see, for good reasons; he returned in 1835 and is recorded at “18 Charles Street, Berners Street” (see Appendix).

[12] Lisson Grove was home to many studios and residences of artists. Like C. H. Tatham, “Rossi owned a large house in Lisson Grove. By 1817 his prosperity had declined, and he rented out part of it to the painter Benjamin Robert Haydon, who was then temporarily solvent” and remained Rossi's tenant until his imprisonment for debt in 1823 (DNB 2004). An obituary in the Art-Union noted that "Mr Rossi has bequeathed to his family nothing but his fame." Given his brood of 16 children, it probably wasn’t enough to go around.

[13] Indeed, the diverse quality in posthumous impressions of illuminated plates raises the possibility of more than one posthumous printer (see Chapter 10, note 00).

[14] Linnell introduced Richmond to Tatham Sr. as a potential drawing teacher for Tatham’s daughter Julia, and Linnell introduced Palmer to Tatham Sr. as well as to Frederick. Richmond, Palmer, and Tatham were all painters, though most biographies refer to Tatham only as a sculptor. He abandoned sculpture early in his career for pastels and watercolors (A. Gilchrist, 129). He exhibited 48 portraits in the Royal Academy, London, between 1825 and 1854. His specialty was painting children.

[15] The rates were collected on 25 March (Lady’s Day), 21 June (Mid Summer), 29 September (Michaelmas), and 25 December (Christmas).

[16] Whitehead states that he left the Mayfair office and ended his architectural practice in 1833 (83). Tatham may have carried on some architectural work after 1832, but he had vacated the premises by the fourth quarter of 1832, and possibly earlier. The correspondence with Henry Walpole of the Eyre estate, which had been going to 1 Queen Street, was redirected to 34 Alpha Road in 1831 (Galinou 478).

[17] An alternative narrative accounting for the press’s whereabout that would end the same way is: Mrs. Blake took the press to her apartment and upon her death Tatham took it to his studio at 20a Lisson Grove North, which he vacated later in 1833. The end result was F. Tatham not taking the press to his subsequent location, presumably 18 Charles Street.

[18] Sale catalogue, Christie’s London, and 1833.07.09-10, Soane Museum; Lugt 13374. In total Soane paid £37 for “Sundries at Mr Tatham's Sale” (Ledger E, 11 July 1833).

[19] Mahogany appears to have been the favorite wood: “a pair of mahogany book-cases, with glazed folding-doors and marble slabs” (54), “a set of mahogany dining tables, with two extra leaves” (75), “eight mahogany dining-room chairs with leather seats” (76), “a mahogany circular table, on richly carved pillar and claw” (77), and “a mahogany four-post bedstead, and paillasse” (85). The houses were systematically emptied of chandeliers, candleholders, copper pans, brass kettles, skillets, bidets, “six blankets and a rug” (88), “a feather bed, bolster, and two pillows” (87), “two wool mattresses” (86).

[20] According to the Tatham Family History website, “no evidence” has yet been located that Tatham Sr. “was legally bankrupt or insolvent,” despite rumors of his financial problems. The family website, along with the Wikipedia article on C. H. Tatham, and the DNB articles by Richard Riddell on C. H. Tatham and Raymond Lister on George Richmond rely heavily on Henry J. Curtis’ typescript Notes for a pedigree of the Tathams of co. Durham, England (1921) The Wikipedia article on CHT (09 Jul 2011) refers to The Times Digital Archive (note 2) regarding possible bankruptcy, but I have not been able to locate any document there or elsewhere to prove that he had filed for bankruptcy. I have not come across any such rumors for the son until late in his life, when Anne Gilchrist told W. M. Rossetti that he had “gradually lost all his practice” (129).

[21] Linnell consulted with C. H. Tatham in 1829 about the plans he drew up for his Porchester Terrace, London home, and he probably would have done so at Tatham’s Mayfair office rather than in Hampstead [CHECK FOR DATE]. See John Linnell’s Building Book: http://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/gallery/Linnell/ExhibitionNotes.htm#15

[22] Bentley, in Blake Books 696, transcribes “acc s[]le” as “acc^g to[?] Mr. Tatham…” to mean “according to”; in BR2 556, he transcribes it as “acc[?] sale[?] [i.e. “acquired at the sale of”?] Mr. Tatham….” Upon examining the inscription, I see “acc s[a]le,” to mean “acquired at the sale of.”

[23] The Swedenborg volume was sold as part of A. G. Dew-Smith’s collection at Sotheby’s on 29-30 January 1878 (lot 15); America copy B sold in lot 247 and came from an unknown source in 1874 (BB 00).

[24] Dew-Smith also owned Visions copy N (lot 196), which Mrs. Blake had sold to James Ferguson, c. 1829, with F. Tatham’s assistance (see Chapter 9). Whether this was a coincidence or some kind of connection I cannot say.

[25] Anne Gilchrist described Palmer as “the genial, scholarly artist . . . the last of the long line of English painters to posses and to cherish poetic landscape art” (Letters 57). Of the 59 books recorded in Blake Books (nos. 711 – 764), 27 are untraced. Three went to Linnell (two as gifts, one as purchase), seven were owned by S. Palmer, who inscribed two as “Samuel Palmer 1833” (711), “Samuel Palmer / 1833” (712); he also owned nos. 715, 718, 721, 743, 749. [CHECK BBS]

[26] Transcribed from the original letter in the Soane Museum. See also BR2 552.

[27] The volume with Blake’s “Order of the Songs” manuscript was auctioned 3-4 July 1863 at Puttick and Simpson as “Blakiana, The Life of William Blake in MS., extracted from Allan Cunningham, with curious plates, drawings, and scraps. [_15.15.0]” (98) (Bentley, Sale Catalogues). The volume was listed in Quaritch’s 1864 A Catalogue of Books, lot 6521, as “Blakiana” with a lengthy description of its contents and a “list of Original Drawings and Sketches sold by auction in 1862 with the prices realized, etc,. . . £21.” The “list” is almost certainly G. A. Smith’s copy of the 29 April 1862 Sotheby auction of A Valuable Collection of Engravings, Drawings and Pictures, Chiefly from the Cabinet of an Amateur; comprising . . . Original Drawings and Sketches by W. Blake. . ..” Smith, who owned “The Order of the Songs” manuscript was at this auction and bought lots 159, 160, 162, 168, and 194. The Blakeana volume shows up again in George Smith’s own auction at Christie’s, 1-5 April 1880, lot 168, sold to Quaritch for £66. The vendors in 1863 and 1864 were presumably listing it for Smith.

[28] Lot 78 of the 1-5 April 1880 Christie’s auction (not recorded in Bentley’s Blake Books or in Sales Catalogues): “Blake (W.) Life, by A. Gilchrist, illustrated, 2 vol. 1863—Swinburne (A. C.) W. Blake, a Critical Essay, illustrations, 1868, 3 vols. 1.17 to Pickering.” Swinburne’s Essay was published in one volume, hence its reformatting into three volumes indicates extra illustrations. Gilchrist’s Life was published in two volumes, but may also have been extra illustrated in the manner of the copy in the Beinecke Library, two volumes rebound on large paper.