Illustrations of the Book of Job. Invented & Engraved by William Blake

First edition of Blake's visionary interpretation of the first of the Poetic Books in the Old Testament. Folio. Engraved title and 21 engravings on drawing paper. Original buff paste board covers with publisher's printed label over quarter brown cloth; cloth perished at spine, rebacked. A beautiful copy retaining the original boards, housed in a custom clamshell case with spine tooled in gilt. The first edition was printed in a run of 315 copies and issued in three versions: 150 copies on laid India with the word "Proof" printed in the bottom margin of plates, 65 copies on French paper with "Proof", and 100 on Whatman paper with the word "Proof" removed from the copper plates but still faintly visible in some pulls. This copy is from the latter, which Keynes calls the Ordinary Issue. Two plates with watermark of "J Whatman Turkey Mill 1825" and one watermarked "J Whatman 1825," Plate No. 1 incorrectly dated "1828". Rubbing to covers, light soiling, light offsetting, and subtle repairs to end sheets. Small chip to corner margin of Plate No. 5, far from the engraving. Provenance: armorial bookplate of Frederick Pollock to front pastedown, additional mounted printed note from antiquarian bookseller, "This book was purchased in 1941 from London whilst the great battle for civilization was in progress. -Francis Edward Ltd." An impressive production hailed by many to be Blake's greatest masterpiece, completed just before the end of his life. "The story which Blake called 'Job's Captivity' fascinated him all his life. He alluded to it throughout his drawings and writings, made a large separate print of Job in 1793, and then a series of twenty-one designs for his faithful patron, Thomas Butts, about 1810" (Bentley). Blake took the plates from Butts' earlier commissions and began work on a second set for John Linnell, his friend and fellow artist, in 1821. Hoping to earn his impoverished, aging friend much needed income, Linnell completely backed the project monetarily while Blake went to task engraving. Only 20 of the 315 sets were sold during Blake's lifetime mostly to members of his inner circle marking this a commercial failure. However the work was widely recognized as an artistic success amongst the nobility and upper gentry with copies purchased for the King's Library and The Royal Academy. Like many artists, Blake did not receive proper recognition until after his death. Admired by John Ruskin, he writes highly of the artist in his 1857 text The Elements of Drawing that, "The Book of Job [.] is of the highest rank in certain characters of imagination and expression; in the mode of obtaining certain effects of light it will also prove a very useful example to you. In expressing conditions of glaring and flickering light, Blake is greater than Rembrandt." Bentley 421A, Keynes 55 vi, Ray 8.…