Morris’s ‘News From Nowhere’ was first published in serial form in The Commonweal , January – October 1890. In 1891, it was reprinted in book form by Reeves and Turner. It was from this later edition with a few corrections that the text for the Kelmscott Press edition was set up. The illustrated frontispiece, designed by Charles March Gere, shows the entrance to Kelmscott Manor, Morris’s country home on the Oxfordshire/Gloucestershire border near Lechlade, after which he named his house in Hammersmith and the Press itself. 300 copies printed on paper at 2 guineas, 10 on vellum at 10 guineas.
Details of the wood engraving are as follows:
‘View of the entrance to Kelmscott Manor’
wood engaving 11.4 x 10.5 cm.
Monogrammed lower right CMG
Flagged footpath leading up to doorway of stone built house with gabled front, another wing of the house right and rose trees flanking path.
The inscription below (in upper case Golden type0:
THIS IS THE PICTURE OF THE OLD / HOUSE BY THE THAMES TO WHICH / THE PEOPLE OF THE STORY WENT. / HEREAFTER FOLLOWS THE BOOK IT- / SELF WHICH IS CALLED NEWS FROM / NOWHERE OR AN EPOCH OF REST & / IS WRITTEN BY WILLIAM / MORRIS
The inscription and lettering set in narrow border of scrolling leaves were designed by Morris.
The illustration was used again, without border and with title below: A VIEW OF THE MANOR HOUSE AT KELMSCOTT IN OXFORDSHIRE, FROM THE GARDEN GATE in the small booklet “Gossip about an old house on the Upper Thames by William Morris” printed by the Birmingham Guild of Handicraft Press in November 1895.
