News  June 2024

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20th June 2024

Our new Ambassador John Higgs, who visited the cottage earlier this month, has written in a piece called My Blakean Month, on his Substack blog, Octannual Manual, about his new involvement with the Blake cottage Trust and argues persuasively about the urgent need to save the cottage.  He says: "This cottage is where one of the rare positive visions of England was forged. It would be a terrible thing to lose."

5th June 2024

The acclaimed author and Blake Cottage Trust Ambassador, John Higgs, has called for urgent support for the Blake Cottage Trust's appeal for funds to save this important building where Blake produced some of his most inspirational work. Contrasting the huge international and domestic popularity of Blake spanning the worlds of rock and folk musicians, the Proms and the Womens' Institute, with the neglect by the nation of this iconic venue in Sussex, John highlighted the reality that if nothing is done this year to save the cottage roof, chances of preserving the building will become even more difficult.

John made his remarks during a Sotheby's Talk in London being held in advance of the auction of one of the earliest original editions of The Songs of Innocence and of Experience. The auction will be held in New York on June 26th with initial pricing being set at $1.2-1.8 million.

Also speaking at the event art historian Andrew Graham Dixon highlighted the unique creativity of Blake in combining poetry, painting and printing in ways still resonant today and typical of a distinctively British cultural heritage with wide appeal.

Selby Kiffer, Sothebys Senior Vice President described the special provenance of the Blake edition which was magnificently displayed at the event. The book is auctioned alongside an original handwritten letter by William Taylor Coleridge in which he ranks the poems. 

Commenting after the Sotheby's talk Blake Cottage Trust Chairperson, Doug Nicholls said: "Blake gave his priceless images and words free of charge to the world yet was buried in a pauper's grave. His imagination was particularly stirred during his three year stay in the cottage and I believe the greatest token of appreciation the world could now give to him would be to ensure that this wonderful place can be transformed by 2027, when we commemorate the bicentenary of his death, into a place of creativity and legacy as the nation has done for most of our other great writers and artists."