Of the first book set I was most interested in Night Thoughts. I was first drawn to the book because of the familiarity of the illustrations. William Blake is one of my favorite poets, and I have always enjoyed his combination of text and image; his Songs of Innocence and of Experience was one of my first encounters with cohesive visual and textual elements. As I read the lyric The Tyger I was always struck by how Blake’s artistry extended beyond the verse as he illustrated his subject in the background of the calligraphic lines.

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/17.10.42

Having only read and viewed the engravings of Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience I was surprised when I looked at Night Thoughts to discover that Blake illustrated for poetic works beyond his own. While I personally prefer Blake’s poetry to Young’s, I found the combination to be stimulating as Blake’s engravings further dramatized Young’s verse. The flowing lines of Blake’s images implied a movement that was mirrored in Young’s determined pace.

The binding of Night Thoughts followed the cool color scheme that Blake employed in the book’s pages, and was eye-catching in its difference from the other books that we viewed. However, I would have enjoyed seeing the original leather binding of the book as it would have completed my first exposure to an original 18th century publication of Blake’s illustrations.