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Revolution and Romanticism
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A facsimile reprint in the Revolution & Romanticism series chosen and introduced by Jonathan Wordsworth ISBN 1 85477 210 4 234 x 156 mm 236 pages, |
BENJAMIN HEATH MALKIN A Father's Memoirs of his Child 1806 This is the book through which Coleridge and Wordsworth knew Blake. It provides for the first time since their original appearance to a select few in the illuminated books, commercially printed texts of, for instance, ‘How sweet I roam’d’ and 'The Tyger'. It is also the book which gives us the earliest account of Blake’s youth, personal character and working methods: Malkin was a friend to Blake, and Blake provides the frontispiece. But Blake is not the only interest of this book. With his narrative devoted to a son who died at the age of six Malkin makes his own contribution to Romantic literature. He describes his subject’s progress tenderly, entering into the imaginary world of Allestone, which the child had mapped, peopled and chronicled. Malkin’s song of innocence has a significant place in the Romantic rediscovery of childhood. £48 $85
Title page and Blake frontispiece |
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