Annotated
William Blake
Northrop Frye remained an extensive reader his entire life and his personal library currently forms part of the Northrop Frye Annotated collection, Victoria University Library.
The collection consists of 2,053 books from Frye’s own library, which was transferred to Victoria University Library following the death of the scholar in 1991. The texts of the titles include notes, underlines, and square brackets, inscribed in Frye’s hand. They consist of both fiction and nonfiction books, and range from scholarly sources which Frye used in his research and teaching, to popular fiction which Frye enjoyed as part of his leisurely reading.
The books related to William Blake in the collection include:
- Baker, C.H. Collins. Catalogue of William Blake’s Drawings and Paintings in the Huntington Library. Huntington Library, 1938. viii, 24 p. Annotated no. 7
- Bishop, Morchard. Blake’s Hayley: the Life, Works and Friendship of William Hayley. Gollancz, 1951. 372 p. Annotated no. 5
- Blackstone, Bernard. English Blake. Cambridge University Press, 1949. xviii, 455 p. Annotated no. 3
- Blake, William. The Complete Writings of William Blake, with all the Variant Readings, edited by Geoffrey Keynes, Nonesuch Press, 1958. xv, 936 p. Annotated no. 2
- —. Engravings by William Blake, The Separate Plates: A Catalogue Raisonné, edited by Geoffrey Keynes, Emery Walker, 1956. xiii, 86 p. Annotated no. 6
- —.Poetry and Prose of William Blake, edited by Geoffrey Keynes Nonesuch Press, 1948. xi, 936 p. Annotated no. 1
- Erdman, David V. Blake. Prophet Against Empire: A Poet’s Interpretation of the History of His Own Times. Princeton University Press, 1954. xx, 503 p. Annotated no. 4
- Gilchrist, Alexander. Life of William Blake. Dent, 1945. 422 p. Annotated no. 1354
- Keynes, Geoffrey. Blake Studies: Notes on His Life and Works in Seventeen Chapters. Rupert Hart-Davis, 1949. xiii, 208 p. Annotated no. 341
- Margoliouth, H.M. William Blake. Oxford University Press, 1951. 184 p. Annotated no. 1357
- Plowman, Max. An Introduction to the Study of Blake. Dent, 1927. xv, 183 p. Annotated no. 1353.
Explore
Consult the finding aid associated with the Northrop Frye fonds for the complete list of books annotated by the literary critic, including monographs on Romanticism. The bibliographic description associated with each title can be located in the library catalogue and is listed individually by title.
Robert D. Denham’s essay, “Annotations in the Books in Frye’s Personal Library” (published in The Northrop Frye Handbook: A Biographical and Bibliographic Guide) explains in detail the various markings on the pages and margins of the books.