203. A Descriptive Catalogue of Pictures, Poetical and Historical Inventions Painted by William Blake

Shortly after a quarrel with the publisher R. H. Cromek regarding a commission for an engraving of the Canterbury Pilgrims, Blake painted his own version and announced that he planned to engrave it. He exhibited it along with fifteen other drawings at his brother's shop in Soho in spring 1809. This slight catalogue of the exhibition contains descriptions of each work. For the Pilgrims, however, he devoted a twenty-eight page analysis of the characters as he understood Chaucer's descriptions; Charles Lamb (1775–1834) thought it very good Chaucer criticism. Only sixteen copies of this booklet survive. This copy was given to the Ancient Frederick Tatham some fifteen years later, when he and Blake met.