MUIR'S FACSILIMES

In the same way that Sampson in 1905 was only interested in studying the poems produced by Blake, William Muir in 1884 was only interested in making available the images which Blake produced. Although Muir had not originally been a printer he set out to "make available colored facsimiles of Blake’s works in Illuminated Printing." To create the outlines he make lithographs which could be hand colored by himself and a close knit group of colorists relying on Blake's coloring of a single copy.
 
Over a period of 50 years Muir produced copies of 13 of Blake's Illuminated Books limiting the number of copies for each to 50 or less. The project depended on the bookseller Quaritch to distribute the books in a way that was profitable to both the producer and the seller.

Muir made both uncolored and colored copies using books in the British Museum, the Fitzwilliam and in Quaritch's collection to obtain patterns for printing and coloring each book.

The Muir facsimiles, as antiquarian books, are on the market today and a sample page can be viewed at the website of John Windle Antiquarian Bookseller, San Francisco, California, USA.

 
The title page of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell was advertised at Biblio.com .

Windle Antiquarian Bookseller     Facsimile of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
   Title Page, Copy A

Compare the facsimile to the Blake plate of the same copy in the Blake Archive. Copy A is known as the Beckford copy; the original is in the collection of the Houghton Library of Harvard University.

The Blake Archive gives this Copy Information for Copy A of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell:  
"Acquired at an unknown time by William Beckford; sold from his library, Sotheby's, 29 Nov. 1883, lot 764, bound with The Book of Thel copy A and The Book of Urizen copy F (£121 to the dealer Bernard Quaritch); the three works still bound together offered by Quaritch, "Rough List" 67 of Jan. 1884, item 80 (£150), and "Rough List" 73 of Nov. 1885, item 51 (£150); acquired no later than 1891 by Edward W. Hooper, who probably disbound the volume (see the Note on Binding, above); copy A of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell acquired by Hooper's daughter, Mrs. Bancel Lafarge, possibly by inheritance in 1921; bequeathed by Lafarge in May 1948 to the Houghton Library, Harvard University."

Keri Davies made this statement on his blog in 2014:
 
"Most copies of Muir's facsimile of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell are colured in emulation of copy A (the Beckford copy), only a very small number being coloured from the Fitzwilliam Museum copy (H)." [Copy I] 

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Bonhams Fine Art Auctioneers  
Facsimile of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell 
Title Page, Copy I

The Blake Archive Copy Information for Copy I in the Fitzwilliam Museum states: "Copy I is the last copy of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell Blake printed, only a few months before his death."

A Muir facsimile with different coloring from Copy A was offered for sale by Bonhams Fine Art Auctioneers. Their description of the work follows:

"BLAKE (WILLIAM)
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, NUMBER 2 OF 50 COPIES, numbered and signed by Muir on final leaf, 27 hand-coloured plates, 6 uncoloured leaves, modern morocco, gilt lettered on upper cover, 4to (290 x 225mm.), Edmonton, [William Muir], 1885

Footnotes

"In 1884, William Muir set to work to make available colored facsimiles of Blake's works in Illuminated Printing. Working by methods similar to Blake's, he made lithographs (not copperplate relief etchings) of the outlines which he and his assistants printed and then colored by hand" (G.E. Bentley, "Blake... Had No Quaritch. The Sale of William Muir's Blake Facsimiles", article in Blake, Vol. 27, 1993).

On the preface leaf of this copy the note stating that copies are facsimiled from a copy in the possession of Quaritch is struck through, and replaced with a manuscript note that it is copied from the "Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge Copy". In the Quaritch sale catalogue of Muir's facsimiles it was noted that "only a very small number being coloured from the Fitzwilliam copy".

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G. E. Bentley, Jr. in his article on Muir Facsimiles in Blake: An Illustrated Qrarterly wrote:  

"In 1884, William Muir set to work to make available colored facsimiles of Blake’s works in Illuminated Printing. Working by methods similar to Blake’s, he made lithographs (not copperplate relief etchings) of the outlines which he and his assistants printed and then colored by hand. Usually, of course, Muir used one original as the model for all copies of a facsimile title, rather than making each copy deliberately different as Blake generally did. Altogether he reproduced 13 works in Illuminated Printing, generally in editions not exceeding 50 copies, and a few in more than one edition. His editions were larger than Blake’s, though not much larger, and, until the Blake Trust began publishing Blake facsimiles in 1951, Muir’s facsimiles were often the only color reproductions available. His color facsimiles of Milton (1886) and The Song of Los (1890) were the only ones for almost a century (1967 and 1975)."

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THE MARRIAGE of HEAVEN and HELL, PLATE 2, (E 33)

             "The Argument.
Rintrah roars & shakes his fires in the burdend air;
Hungry clouds swag on the deep

Once meek, and in a perilous path,
The just man kept his course along 
The vale of death.
Roses are planted where thorns grow.
And on the barren heath
Sing the honey bees

Then the perilous path was planted:
And a river, and a spring
On every cliff and tomb;
And on the bleached bones
Red clay brought forth.

Till the villain left the paths of ease,
To walk in perilous paths, and drive
The just man into barren climes.

Now the sneaking serpent walks
In mild humility.
And the just man rages in the wilds
Where lions roam.

Rintrah roars & shakes his fires in the burdend air;
Hungry clouds swag on the deep."

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Look through the book (Copy D) The Marriage of Heaven and Hell on the Library of Congress website.