This talk explores Blake’s composite art in relation to the dynamics of illustration, comparing
formats of commercial illustration as an unbound mobile object moving in and out of different
books with Blake’s illuminated printing. Blake exploits the constitutively mobile potential of
full-plate commercial illustrations produced in different workshops and added to the book at
the point of binding, retaining that mobility in his illuminated books, where different
placements make each copy unique, but also blur the boundaries between different books.
We will discuss examples from the continental prophecies and Blake’s engagement with
Edward Young’s Night Thoughts.

Luisa Calè is Professor of Romantic and Nineteenth-Century Literature and Visual Culture at
Birkbeck, University of London, exhibitions editor at Blake/An Illustrated Quarterly, associate
editor at Word & Image, and author of The Book Unbound: Material Cultures of Reading and
Collecting, 1750-1850 (Cambridge University Press, 2025).