Visionary Heads

The Visionary Heads is a series of black chalk and pencil drawings produced by William Blake after 1818 by request of John Varley, the watercolour artist and astrologer. The subjects of the sketches, many of whom are famous historical and mythical characters, appeared to Blake in visions during late night meetings with Varley, as if sitting for portraits. The drawings are contained in three sketchbooks and there are a number of loose leaves indicating the existence of a fourth sketchbook. Like most of Blake's other works, they have been subject to academic scrutiny and study.
Among the "Visionary Heads" drawn by Blake are David, Solomon, Uriah and Bathsheba, Nebuchadnezzar, Saul, Lot, Job, Socrates, his wife Xantippe, Julius Caesar, Christ, Muhammad, Merlin, Boadicea, Charlemagne, Ossian, Robin Hood, Caractacus, King Edward I, his Queen Eleanor, Black Prince, King Edward III, William Wallace, Wat Tyler, Roger Bacon, John Milton, Voltaire, as well as Devil, Satan, "Cancer", "The Man Who Built the Pyramids", "The Portrait of a Man who instructed Mr Blake in Painting &c in his Dreams", etc. The most famous of that series is Blake's painting of "The Ghost of a Flea", made after the "Visionary Head of The Ghost of a Flea".
Background and context.
William Blake claimed to have seen visions from his young age throughout his life, and in these visions he was visited by many spirits of people from the remote past as well as by his deceased friends from whom he received his inspiration for his poetry and painting. He also believed he was personally instructed and encouraged by Archangels to create his artistic works, which he claimed were actively read and enjoyed by the same Archangels. In 1800 he wrote: “I know that our deceased friends are more really with us than when they were apparent to our mortal part. Thirteen years ago I lost a brother, and with his spirit I converse daily and hourly in the spirit, and see him in my remembrance, in the region of my imagination. I hear his advice, and even now write from his dictate.” 
In September 1818 the successful young painter John Linnell, one of the best friends and kindest patrons of William Blake, introduced to Blake his former teacher John Varley. Varley was fascinated by Blake's accounts of his visions, thinking that they came from the spirit world of astrology. He persuaded Blake to draw the images of these visions in his presence to illustrate his "Treatise on Zodiacal Physiognomy", published in 1828, after the death of William Blake.
In 1819–20, Blake and Varley would often meet at Varley's house, and from about 9.00 pm until 5.00 am, play a game in which Varley would suggest Blake attempt to summon the spirit of some historical or mythological person. On the appearance of the spirit, Blake would then attempt to sketch their likeness. These drawings of which many remain, are the "spiritual images" of many very well known people of the past, whom Blake claimed to see in visions that he experienced during these sessions.
Blake's biographer Alexander Gilchrist describes the meetings in the following manner: 
 
Sometimes these sessions were in the nature of public events, as Bentley noted: "These midnight seances attracted the attention of many who otherwise would have ignored Blake, and a surprising number of lurid accounts were published about them – accounts which may, however, be substantially true. At least they are fairly consistent both with each other and with the inscriptions on the Visionary Heads themselves."
John Varley left his account of these sessions that took place almost nightly, recording some dates and circumstances of the evenings. He made a lot of detailed inscriptions below or on the back of Blake's drawings that help to classify them. He also created two lists known as “Varley's lists of Visionary Heads” (A & B) where he specified about 90 titles (some of them repeated) of “Portraits Drawn by W. Blake from Visions which appeared to him & Remained while he completed them…” John Linnell, who also was involved in these events and copied many of Blake's "Visionary Heads" to engrave them later for Varley's "Treatise", wrote his own account and views on this subject in his “Journal” and “Autobiography” (fully cited by Gerald Eades Bentley Jr. in his "Blake Records", "see in the Bibliography below"). In the opinion of the Blake scholar Sir Geoffrey Keynes: 
Another Blake scholar, Kathleen Raine, expressed her opinion thus:
Description.
John Varley provided Blake with a number of sketchbooks of different sizes for the purpose of making the drawings, the so-called "Blake-Varley Sketchbooks" (BVS). Collectively, scholars have identified three sketchbooks in which the drawings were contained. Two have been recovered by collectors, and the third has yet to be discovered, though clear records from the period and individual pages attest to the sketchbook. Other unbound sketches have been identified as well, some of them removed from one of the sketchbooks, while others may have been loose since Blake's production of them.
In addition, there are many Loose "Visionary Heads" made of separate sheets of paper. Some of them survived only in copies made by John Linnell. Though many other pictures were documented by Varley and Linnell, they have not been discovered and possibly are lost forever. Among these lost are the visionary heads of King Alfred, Cleopatra, St. Dunstan, Edward IV; Eleanor (Queen of Edward I), Guy Fawkes, Henry I of England, Henry II of England, Hezekiah, Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, Founder of the Pyramids, Richard III, David Rizzio, Richard Duke of Normandy, Robert Duke of Normandy, King Rufus, Semiramis, William Shakespeare, and Wild Thyme.
The "Blake-Varley Sketchbooks":
"The Small Blake-Varley Sketchbook".
The sketchbook (c. 1819, Butlin #692, now broken up) that was lost to sight for almost a century was acquired in 1967 by Mr D. E. Clayton-Smith and then described and reproduced in 1969 by Martin Butlin (see Bibliography). This is an album 155 x 105 mm with the watermark 1806 that contains at least 36 pictures attributed to Blake, including:
plus a few unidentified figures.
"The Large Blake-Varley Sketchbook".
The Sketchbook was sold by Christie's (London) to Mr. Allan Parker. All designs were reproduced in Christie's catalogue 21 March 1989. This is an album 254 x 203 mm with the watermark: C. BRENCHLEY 1804. The leaves were foliated 1-89? and later 22 leaves were razored out and them some of them replaced; this is why the suggested numeration is quite sophisticated. The album contains more than 60 of Blake's pictures including:
"The Folio Blake-Varley Sketchbook".
The folio size Blake-Varley Sketchbook has not been discovered in whole. However, three loose pages with the visionary heads of Pindar, Corinna and Lais are extant. The available images are from a 42 x 27 cm album with the watermark: W TURNER & SON.
Loose Visionary Heads.
There are more than 50 loose visionary heads including:
etc.