Background
During autumn 1790, Blake moved to Lambeth, Surrey. He had a studio at the new house that he used while writing his what were later called his "Lambeth Books", which included The Book of Ahania in 1795. Like the others under the title, all aspects of the work, including the composition of the designs, the printing of them, the colouring of them, and the selling of them, happened at his home. The Book of Ahania was one of the few works that Blake describes as "illuminated printing", one of his colour printed works with the coloured ink being placed on the copperplate before printed.
Both The Book of Los and The Book of Ahania were the same size, produced at the same time, and were probably etched on opposing sides of the same copper-plates. Both works were the one ones by Blake to have intaglio etchings instead of relief etchings. Likewise, both works were colour-printed, where the various coloured inks were directly applied to the etching instead of added in later.
Although separate copies of individual plates exist, only one complete version of the Ahania exists, which is in the collection of the Library of Congress.
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