Since it was first published in 1965, David V. Erdman's edition has been widely hailed as easily the best available text of Blake's poetry and prose. Comparing it to other Blake texts, Michael J. Tolley in Southern Review observed that it has 'very much fuller textual annotations; and incorporates a remarkable number of new readings, including an almost complete recovery of the suppressed or altered passages in Jerusalem and many new readings of hitherto dubious passages in the manuscript, including many in The Four Zoas.'
This newly revised edition includes the latest work on variants, deleted lines, arrangements of poems and dating, and eighty-two pages of critical commentary by Harold Bloom. The volume has been awarded the disctinction of 'An Approved Edition' by the Committee on Scholarly Editions of the Modern Language Association.
