Richard Edwards was a member of the great book-selling family of
Edwards of Halifax whose shops flourished from 1749 to 1826 in both
Halifax and London. The founder of the firm, William Edwards
(1722-1808), built up a flourishing business in Halifax specializing in
second-hand and antiquarian books. He was also a book publisher in a small
way, but he was best known as a creator of fine bindings, and the styles of
bookbinding he created or perfected are what most connoisseurs associate
with the name of Edwards of Halifax.
William Edwards had four sons who entered the bookselling business:
James Edwards (1756-1816), the best known and most successful member
of the family, whose extraordinarily fashionable bookshop in Pall Mall
flourished from 1784 to about 1800, when he retired, rich and contented;
John Edwards (1758-92), who was in partnership with his brother James in
the Pall Mall shop until his death in Paris in 1792 and about whom very
little is known; Thomas Edwards (1762-1834), who kept up the Halifax
shop very successfully from his father's death until he retired about 1826;
and Richard Edwards (1768-1827), who established a second Edwards
bookshop in New Bond Street by 1791, published some ephemeral
pamphlets and two important illustrated books, and retired from business
into obscurity about 1798, just when his most important books were first
reaching the public. He is a minor member of an important book-binding,
book-selling and publishing family, a man with few claims upon the
attention
of posterity—except that about 1794 he commissioned William
Blake's
547 extra-ordinary folio illustrations to Edward Young's Night
Thoughts and published the first part of the text with forty-three
engravings by Blake in 1797. This was by far the largest commission Blake
ever received, and it had crucial effects upon his life, his art, and his
poetry. It offered him a real possibility of fame and fortune,
it vitally affected his long manuscript Prophecy called
Vala
or
The Four Zoas (?1796-?1807) written at just this time, and
its
commercial failure, after Blake had invested in it more time and energy
than he could well spare from the work of the world, helped him to
determine to leave London and the great world and independence for the
seaside village of Felpham and dependence upon one man and obscurity.
The man responsible for these effects upon the work and life of the great
painter and poet deserves to be better known.
Considering the contemporary fame of his father William Edwards
and his brothers James and Thomas Edwards and the tardy fame of his
extraordinary edition of Young's Night Thoughts (1797) with
William Blake's designs, Richard Edwards remains a surprisingly shadowy
figure. Except for his distinguished family and for his one act of publishing
genius, surpassing that of any other member of his family and probably of
any other commercial publisher of his time, Richard Edwards did very little
which warrants the attention of posterity. The interest of his career focuses
upon his brief and sensational patronage of William Blake—and upon
the
contrast of this act with the rest of his life.
