Fables; With A Life of the Author and embellished with Seventy Plates

London: John Stockdale, 1793. First edition. leather_bound. Full green levant, spines evenly faded to brown. Aeg. Fine. Blake, William. 225, 187. 27 x 17 cm. First Stockdale edition, first issue (with long "s" throughout). Frontispiece memorial illustration, engraved title pages in both volumes, and 68 engraved plates, including 12 by William Blake. Published posthumously with a life of the author at the end of volume 2. List of Subscribers also end of Vol.2; with verso of last leaf a publisher advert. With the "Gay Monument" plate at rear of second volume. BENTLEY 460. GORDON RAY. "Blake's twelve engravings follow designs in earlier editions of the 'Fables,' but hey are freely adapted." KEYNES 106. Wide text margins, plates with tissue guards, marbled endpapers, inner dentelles, backstrip lettered and decorated with gilt motifs. Bound by Lloyd, Wallis & Lloyd Bentley of London.