In 1795 the bookseller Richard Edwards commissioned Blake to illustrate the nine 'Nights' of Edward Young's Night Thoughts, a popular meditative poem first published in 1742-5. Blake finished over 500 watercolours but engraved only forty-three of them to illustrate the four 'Nights' which comprise this edition. Twenty-four coloured copies of the Night Thoughts are believed to exist, some, if not all of them hand-tinted after models prepared by Blake. The publication was not a success, apparently due to the economic recession caused by the war with France.

This particular volume once belonged to William à Beckett (1806-69), first Chief Justice of Victoria and an ancestor of the painter, Arthur Boyd. Some time later it came into the possession of Alfred Felton (1831-1904) this Gallery's greatest benefactor. It was subsequently owned by Robert Carl Sticht (1856-1922) whose collection of drawings and prints was acquired by the Gallery in 1923 through the Felton Bequest.