First published in 1998, this book formed part of an ongoing effort to restore politics and history to the centre of Blake studies. The collection contains essays with varying methodological assumptions and differing positions on questions central to historicist Blake scholarship.

Jackie Disalvo, G. A. Rosso, Christopher Z. Hobson

General Editor's Preface, William E. Cain; Introduction, Jackie DiSalvo; Part 1 Blake and the Question of Revolution; Chapter 1 The Myth of Blake's "Orc Cycle", Christopher Z. Hobson; Chapter 2 Blake's Bible of Hell: Prophecy as Political Program, Stephen C. Behrendt; Chapter 3 The Anxiety of Production: Blake's Shift from Collective Hope to Writing Self, Eric V. Chandler; Chapter 4 William Blake's Figurai Politics, James E. Swearingen; Part 101 Blake and the Underground; Chapter 5 "The Doom of Tyrants": William Blake, Richard "Citizen" Lee, and the Millenarian Public Sphere, Jon Mee; Chapter 6 Blake's Tiriel and the Regency Crisis: Lifting the Veil on a Royal Masonic Scandal, Marsha Keith Schuchard; Chapter 7 Laboring Into Futurity: A Response, Joseph Wittreich; Part 2 Art and Politics; Chapter 8 "Lovers of Wild Rebellion": The Image of Satan in British Art of the Revolutionary Era, John Hutton; Chapter 9 The Mob and "Mrs Q": William Blake, William Benbow, and the Context of Regency Radicalism, David Worrall; Part 102 The French Revolution, 'America" and "Europe'; Chapter 10 Politics and Desire in Blake's The French Revolution, Andrew Lincoln; Chapter 11 "The Lion & Wolf shall cease": Blake's America as a Critique of Counter-Revolutionary Violence, William Richey; Chapter 12 The Finite Revolutions of Europe, Michael Ferber; Chapter 13 Re-Framing the Moment of Creation: Blake's Re-Visions of the Frontispiece and Title Page to Europe, Peter Otto; Part 3 Blake, Empire and Slavery; Chapter 14 Empire of the Sea: Blake's "King Edward the Third" and English Imperial Poetry, G.A. Rosso; Chapter 15 Revolted Negroes and the Devilish Principle: William Blake and Conflicting Visions of Boni's Wars in Surinam, 1772-1796, Anne Rubenstein, Camilla Townsend; Part 103 Blake and Women; Chapter 16 Albion and the Sexual Machine: Blake, Gender and Politics, 1780-1795, Catherine L. McClenahan; Chapter 17 Transfigured Maternity in Blake's Songs of Innocence: Inverting the "Maternity Plot" in "A Dream", Harriet Kramer Linkin; Chapter 18 Maenads, Young Ladies, and the Lovely Daughters of Albion, June Sturrock; Chapter 19 Blake, Gender and Imperial Ideology: A Response, Anne K. Mellor;