No Coercion!

Details

Date: 1891
Dimensions: 21.2 x 14.5 x 2.6 (closed)
Object Type: book
Catalogue number: K1
Manufacturer: Kelmscott Press | 1891 | 1898
Author: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1950

William Morris presented this copy of his ‘Poems by the Way’ to his sister Isabella Gilmore; from her it passed to Miss Morris, niece of William Morris. 300 paper copies were printed with just 13 like this, printed on vellum.

The painter Charles Fairfax Murray helped Morris compile this collection of poems, mostly published in periodicals between 1868-1889 with the exception of ‘Goldilocks & Goldilocks’. Kelmscott Press Secretary, Sydney Cockerell recalled a failed attempt to stain the vellum covers of ‘Poems by the Way’ yellow, red, dark green and indigo.

Details

Date: 1894
Dimensions: 15 x 11 x 1.5 (closed)
Object Type: book
Catalogue number: K12
Manufacturer: Kelmscott Press | 1891 | 1898
Translator: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1950

Translated by William Morris from the French of the 13th century. Printed in an edition limited to 545 copies, The first of these stories, The Tale of the Emperor Coustans, was the source of The Man Born to be King in The Earthly Paradise. The second story is A Tale of Over Sea. Printed in red and black in Chaucer type, wood-engraved titles, borders and initials designed by Morris. With three and six line initials, shoulder notes and some lines (including colophon) in red.

Details

Date: 1895
Dimensions: 29.4 x 21.6 x 4.3 (closed)
Object Type: book
Catalogue number: K2
Manufacturer: Kelmscott Press | 1891 | 1898
Author: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Designer: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898

The Life and Death of Jason was written by William Morris in 1867, originally as a story to be a component of The Earthly Paradise, the finished poem grew much too long for its original placement and became a solo work. This Kelsmcott Press version was published by Morris in 1895, with illustations by Edward Burme Jones. The poem retells the ancient story of Jason, and sets it in Medieval times. Jason was the son of the rightful king of Iolcos and nephew of the usurper Pelias, who challenged him to recover the Golden Fleece (made from the golden wool of a winged ram). Jason commissioned a ship, the Argo, and enlisted an array of other heroes as his crew, known as the Argonauts. After many adventures, they arrived in the city of Colchis ruled by King Aeetes, whose daughter was the sorceress Medea. To win the Golden Fleece from Aeetes, Jason had to yoke two fire-breathing bulls, plough a field and sow it with dragon’s teeth. He completed the tasks with the help of Medea, who had fallen in love with him, and they made their escape with the fleece. They returned to Iolcos, defeated Pelias and Jason was restored to his rightful position as king.

Details

Date: 1893
Dimensions: 20.6 x 14 (closed)
Object Type: book
Material: paper with half holland binding
Catalogue number: K5
Author: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Printer: Kelmscott Press | 1891 | 1898
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Designer: Gere | Charles March | 1869 | 1957
Maker: Hooper, William Harcourt (1834 - 1912)
Seller: Reeves & Turner
Credit notes: Transferred from Walthamstow Central Library, 1950

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.

Details

Date: 1893
Dimensions: 22 x 18.2 x 1.6
Object Type: book
Catalogue number: K2682
Author: Morris | May | 1862 | 1938
Publisher: Joseph Hughes & Co., London
Credit notes: Bequeathed by Joan Edwards, 2002

This book by May Morris provides an introductory guide to embroidery for beginners. The book contains sections on the history of the craft, stitches and techniques, design and colour. May took over the running of Morris & Co’s Embroidery Department in 1885, she also taught and lectured on the subject widely. The book demonstrates her devotion to and understanding of the art of embroidery. She also designed the cover of this book which is stamped with a floral repeat.

Details

Date: 1584
Dimensions: 32 x 23 x 11
Object Type: book
Material: paper
Catalogue number: H34
Owner: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Owner: Morris, Jenny (1861 - 1935)
Credit notes: Transfer from Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter, 2011

This is a rare first edition copy of the first Icelandic bible, it is printed in three parts with separate title pages for the Old Testament, Prophets and the New Testament. It is known as Gudbrand’s Biblia, after its translator and editor Guðbrandur Þorláksson (or Gudbrandur Thorlaksson) (1541 – July 20, 1627). William Morris acquired it during his travels in Iceland in 1871. His Icelandic Diaries record how he saw in the house of one Dr Skaptason at Hnausar (in Húnavatnssýsla) ‘a fine copy of the Gudbrand Bible in its original binding brass-bound and very good’.

An inscription written by Morris in Icelandic on the first page reads: ‘This book I give to my daughter Jóhönnu on the day of her birth 17 Jan: 1891’, revealing that he gave the bible to his elder daughter Jenny on the occassion of her 30th birthday. Morris owned another edition of this bible, which remained in his possesion until his death. It is now in Princeton University Library.

Details

Date: 19.1.1898
Object Type: book
Material: paper
Catalogue number: K694
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Designer: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Maker: Catterson-Smith, Robert (1853 - 1938)
Maker: Hooper, William Harcourt (1834 - 1912)
Printer: Kelmscott Press | 1891 | 1898
Publisher: Kelmscott Press | 1891 | 1898
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1954

The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs is an epic poem by William Morris, first published in 1876. The first refernce to a Kelmscott Press’s edition is found in the Press’s Secretary Sydney Cockerell’s diary on 5 November 1891 where he mentions “Saw … a trial page of Sigurd”. The following year, Morris was proposing it should be an illustrated folio and by 1895 it was announced as being in preparation in the lists by the Kelmscott Press. The folio was intended to be printed in Troy type with 25 illustrations by Burne-Jones, the number of these later being increased to 40. Burne-Jones was however reluctant to illustrate the book and made slow progress on the drawings. Two trial pages were set up and four borders were designed by Morris for the book, but in the end the scheme of printing it as a folio was abandoned. Two of the borders were later used for the Kelmscott Chaucer (pp. 470-471) the remaining two were never used, though one was engraved.

After Morris’s death, 32 copies of the folio pages were privately distributed to Morris’s friends in January 1897. Cockerell persuaded Burne-Jones to supply two illustrations for a more modest edition in small folio – a drawing for one of the illustrations “Gudrun setting fire to the Palace of Atli” (appears on the penultimate page) is now in the WMG’s collection, D192. The borders used in the small folio edition were almost the last Morris designed. They had originally been made for an edition of ‘The Hill of Venus’, which was to have been written in a prose version by Morris and illustrated by Burne-Jones. The foliage of the borders was suggested, according to Cockerell, by ornament in two Psalters of the last half of the 13th century in Morris’s library at Kelmscott House (see similarities of borders with those of the Windmill Psalter). This book was finally printed in 1898, two yeras after Morris’s death and is one of 160 copies printed on paper at 6 guineas (6 were printed on vellum at 20 guineas).

Details

Date: 1885
Object Type: book
Material: paper
Catalogue number: K3030
Author: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Author: Bax, Ernest Belford (1854 - 1926)
Publisher: Socialist League Office
Credit notes: Purchased from Lord Tom Sawyer by the Friends of the William Morris Gallery, 2015

Written on New Year’s Day 1885 by William Morris and Ernest Belfort Bax, the Manifesto of the Socialist League sets out the aims of the fledgling political group. After splitting from the Social Democratic Federation, Morris along with Bax, Edward Aveling, Eleanor Marx and others founded the Socialist League as a more radical group that sought ‘the realization of complete revolutionary Socialism’.

Ernest Belfort Bax was a barrister and historian described by May Morris, William’s younger daughter, as ‘the learned and distinguished philosopher’. Bax taught Morris economics and Marxism in regular sessions that Morris referred to as ‘compulsory Baxination’.

The Socialist League logo featured on this pamphlet was designed by Walter Crane. Crane also produced illustrations for membership cards, invitations and posters for the group. His monochrome illustrations and engravings came to define socialist and trade union imagery for the next thirty years.

Details

Date: 1929
Dimensions: 26 x 18.5 x 1 cm
Object Type: book
Catalogue number: K936
Author: Image, Selwyn, 1849, 1930
Publisher: Sanders Philips & Co, The Baynard Press
Credit notes: Gift of Eleanor Pugh, 1963

Small 4to, quarter cloth with blue paper boards, inscription ‘A.H. Mackmurdo from S.I. Decr 15. 1929.’ on free front endpaper, hand numbered ‘4’, 22 collotype illustration plates.

Details

Date: 1932
Dimensions: 23 x 15 x 2
Object Type: book
Catalogue number: K884
Author: Image, Selwyn, 1849, 1930
Editor: Mackmurdo | Arthur Heygate | 1851 | 1942
Photographer: Walker | Emery | 1851 | 1933

8vo, quarter blue buckram boards with gilt title on spine, in dust jacket, torn, soiled, missing spine, inscription in ink on free front endpaper ‘To my niece Elinor Pugh From the Editor A.H. Mackmurdo 30.7.32’, limited edition of 560 copies, photogravure frontispiece portrait of Selwyn Image by Russell & Sons, engraved by Emery Walker, reproduction of Image letter to Mackmurdo tipped in after p. 12.

Details

Date: 3.1894
Object Type: book
Material: paper
Catalogue number: K25a
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Designer: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Publisher: Kelmscott Press | 1891 | 1898
Credit notes: Presented by Mrs J. W. Mackail, 1946

This leaflet advertises the Ancoats Brotherhood, Manchester, printed by the Kelmscott Press. The Ancoats Brotherhood was founded by Charles Rowley in 1882 as the Ancoats Recreation Committee. In 1889, it was reformed as the Ancoats Brotherhood, offering a year-long programme of lectures, musical evenings, concerts, dances, walks, art exhibitions, and social gatherings. Notable guests included William Morris, Walter Crane, and George Bernard Shaw. Morris lectured there annually until 1894.

The leaflet features extracts from Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and John Ruskin, along with wood-engraved initials, borders, and a press device designed by Morris. It includes the illustration When Adam Delved and Eve Span, designed by Edward Burne-Jones with lettering by Morris. This image first appeared as an etched frontispiece in the 1888 Reeves & Turner edition of Morris’s A Dream of John Ball (see K6), which was originally serialized in The Commonweal in 1887.

Details

Date: 3.1894
Object Type: book
Material: paper
Catalogue number: K25
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Designer: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Publisher: Kelmscott Press | 1891 | 1898
Credit notes: Presented by Mrs J. W. Mackail, 1946

Details

Date: 4.1884
Dimensions: 20.3 x 25.4
Object Type: book
Material: paper
Catalogue number: K918
Artist: Image, Selwyn, 1849, 1930
Editor: Mackmurdo | Arthur Heygate | 1851 | 1942
Author: Horne, Herbert Percy, 1864, 1916
Publisher: Allen, George
Credit notes: Miss Elinor M. Pugh Bequest, 1963

The Hobby Horse was founded chiefly to publish the aims and ideas of the Century Guild. With the exception of an article by Florence Marshall on a cantata by Henry Holmes, all the articles and poems in the first number were contributed by Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo, Herbert Horne and Sellwyn Image; the latter was also responsible for the textual illustrations and front cover (repeated as a title page) and the engraved wood block for this is in the Gallery collection (R104).

The magazine received some hostile reviews on its publication most notably in The Academy (1 June 1884 p. 401): “There may reasonably be some difference of opinion as to Mr. Ruskin’s recent utterances. But it has always been possible to gather an idea of that he would be about. There is no imaginable method, however, in the madness of some of his later followers. The affectation of these persons seems to be only commensurate with their ignorance and their conceit with their incapacity.” Having criticised both the content and the appearance of the magazine, the reviewer concluded that ” a long-suffering public could hardly tolerate another instalment of such nonsense.” It was probably largely as a result of such opinions that no further issues appeared until 1886.

The Gallery also has most of the engraved wood blocks and line blocks for printing the headings, tailpieces, initials and other illustrations for this and subsequent issues of the magazine. The majority of these were bequeathed in 1942 by Mackmurdo, the rest being acquired through the bequest of his niece, Miss Pugh in 1963.

Details

Date: 1904
Dimensions: 19 x 24
Object Type: book
Catalogue number: K6354
Illustrator: Crane, Walter, 1845, 1915
Publisher: Cassell & Company Ltd.
Credit notes: Gift of Olivia Chalmers, 2018

‘Flowers from Shakespeare’s Garden: A Posy from the Plays’ was the last in Walter Crane’s series of five floral fantasies depicting flowers in human form. The book is illustrated in colour throughout, with Crane handling all elements of the design (including hand-lettered text, endpapers and covers). Each leaf features a full-page portrait of a humanized flower, with reference to the Shakespeare play in which the flower is mentioned. The pages are presented in the French-fold or Japanese manner, printed on one side only, with each pair of leaves attached at the fore-edges.

Details

Date: 1885
Dimensions: 27.5 x 22
Object Type: book
Catalogue number: K688
Author: Greenaway, Kate (17 March 1846 - 6 November 1901)
Publisher: Routledge, George
Illustrator: Greenaway, Kate (17 March 1846 - 6 November 1901)
Credit notes: Presented by Mrs Hitch, 1954

This first edition of Kate Greenaway’s children’s book Marigold Garden: Pictures and Rhymes was published in 1885. It contains the nursery rhymes ‘Blue Shoes’, ‘The Daisies’, ‘The Tea Party’, ‘To Mystery Land’, ‘When we went out with Grandma’, ‘When you and I grow up’ and many more, all illustrated by Greenaway.

Kate Greenaway (1846 – 1901), was a children’s book illustrator and writer. Greenaway started her artistic training by attending night classes at Finsbury School and later Heatherly School of Art where she met Edward Burne-Jones, Edward Poynter and Walter Crane. She went on to study graphic design and art at the South Kensington School of Art, the Royal Female School of Art and the Slade between 1858 and 1871. In 1879 she worked with the wood-block engraver and printer Edmund Evans to publish her first illustrated book Under the Window an instant best-seller, which established her reputation. Her collaboration with Evans continued throughout the 1880s and 1890s. Evans cut the woodblocks for this book, the original drawings are in the collection of the National Trust.

Details

Date: c.1920s
Object Type: book
Catalogue number: K3513
Author: Liebert, M., Dr.
Publisher: Meister, Lucius and Brüning Ltd
Credit notes: WMG purchase , 2000

This booklet, Indigo: Its Application in Dyeing and Printing is an instructional booklet on dyeing with indigo, written by Dr M Liebert of Meister Lucius & Bruning Ltd. based on lectures Bradford Foreman Dyers’ Guild. The book once belonged to the Chadwick Family, who had a long association with Morris & Co, several generations of the family having worked for the firm. Frank Chadwick started his career with Morris & Co. c.1921 as a dyer, later becoming one of the Firm’s weavers. The inside page is inscribed in pencil with notes on dyeing. This book was accompanied with: a letter of recommendation for Frank Chadwick from Morris & Co. (dated 19 September 1940) following the closure and voluntary liquidation of the firm, a newspaper cutting (publication unknown) on the Chadwicks’ links with Morris & Co. and a bronze medal awarded to Morris & Co. for work shown at the Exposition Universelle Internationale, Paris, 1900 (S57).

Details

Dimensions: 21.5 x 15.3 x 4
Object Type: book
Catalogue number: K3450
Owner: Gilmore (née Morris), Isabella (1842 - 1923)
Author: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Credit notes: Alison Langley bequest, 2020

1905 Longmans edition of ‘The Earthly Paradise’ by William Morris, from Morris’s sister, Isabella Gilmore’s collection. Taking the form of a compendium of different narratives, ‘The Earthly Paradise’ is an epic poem structured as a frame story, similar to Geoffrey Chaucer’s ‘Canterbury Tales’. It tells the story of a group of Norsemen who have fled a plague in Europe in search of the mythical earthly paradise. Eventually they come to a land where the inhabitants still worship the ancient Greek gods. They decide to stay here and each month the wanderers and the city elders exchange tales. ‘The Earthly Paradise’ contains the tales from a whole year, comprising twenty-four stories. Through this narrative Morris draws both upon Greek myths and Medieval Romance tales, including Icelandic Eddas and Sagas.

Details

Date: 06.1911
Dimensions: 15 x x 11.5
Object Type: book
Catalogue number: K1597f
Publisher: Morris & Co. Decorators Ltd, 449 Oxford Street, London
Printer: Chiswick Press
Sitter: Campfield, George, 1861, 1898

Published by Morris & Co. in 1911 to celebrate their 50th anniversary, this book provides a history of the company and a summary of their different products. Unbound copy, wrpaped in blue paper cover. It also contains photographs of the company’s factory at Merton Abbey and an image of their showroom at 449 Oxford Street. The illustration of ‘Washing Chints in the Wandle’ (p.43) was also published in Lewis F Day’s ‘William Morris and his Art’ (Art Journal, 1899), indicating that some, or all of this series of photographs of Merton Abbey are earlier than 1911.

The illustrations include:

‘The Indigo Vat’

‘Hand Weaving Looms at Merton Abbey’

‘Printing Morris Chintzes’

‘Washing Chintz in the Wandle’

‘Arras Tapestry Looms’

‘Stained Glass Painters at Work’ – George Campfield is the figure seated with his feet on a stool. He left Morris & Co. at the end of 1898 or in 1899 so this would date the photo to the late 1890s, when he was about 70 years old.

Details

Date: c.1881
Dimensions: 29 x 21 x 2
Object Type: book
Catalogue number: K775
Designer: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Printer: Walker | Emery | 1851 | 1933
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1956

This volume contains illustrations to ‘The Story of Cupid and Psyche’ for the projected edition of ‘The Earthly Paradise’ begun in September 1865. The illustrations were engraved on wood by Morris and his friends and associates in the Firm. Burne-Jones did illustrations for some of the other tales in ‘The Earthly Paradise’, but the Cupid and Psyche wood engravings were the most completed part of the project which was abandoned in 1868 after trial pages, set in Basle and Caslon types at the Chiswick Press, did not prove satisfactory.

In 1881, a few copies of these sets of illustrations were made, apparently by Morris himself, by friction printing. A second series (numbering about 8 sets according to Sydney Cockerell) was pulled for Morris by Emery Walker at his premises at 16 Cliffords Inn during the Kelmscott Press years; all these were on Kelmscott Press paper. This volume (one of the 8 sets) was given to Sydney Cockerell by Jane Morris c.1898. Other sets are in the Pierpont Morgan Library (Gift of John M. Crawford) and the Fitzwilliam Museum (J.R. Holliday Bequest 1927).

This volume includes a handwritten list of the illustrations in William Morris’s hand.

Drawings related to the Cupid and Psyche illustrations and other tales from ‘The Earthly Paradise’ are in the following collections: A volume of 86 preliminary drawings of various sizes executed in pencil, pen and ink or chalk, is now in Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (648’27). A series of 47 finished designs in pencil on tracing paper was given by Burne-Jones to Ruskin, who presented them to Oxford University in 1875 (now in the Ashmolean). Another volume of 39 drawings formerly in the collection of F.S. Ellis is in the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York; 36 of these are on tracing paper, the remaining 3 on drawing paper; 21 relate to the Cupid and Psyche story though some are variants of scenes which were never engraved on wood; others are for the Story of Pygmalion and The Hill of Venus.

Details

Date: 1892
Object Type: book
Technique: woodblock
Catalogue number: K880
Artist: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1961

Frustrated by the poor quality of Victorian mass-produced paperbacks, Morris established his own private press, the Kelmscott Press, in 1891 to produce handmade books. The first book to be printed was the Golden Legend, a medieval guide to Christian saints. Morris designed a new typeface for the text resembling a font he found in a fifteenth-century hand-printed book. He took inspiration from the original font claiming ‘I think I mastered the essence of it, I did not copy it’. William Morris’s original drawing for this frontispiece is also in the Gallery’s collection, see: D239.

Details

Date: 1899
Object Type: book
Catalogue number: K625b
Author: Day, Lewis Foreman (1845 - 1910)
Publisher: J.S. Virtue and Co. Ltd

Details

Date: 1873
Object Type: book
Catalogue number: K63
Author: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Publisher: Ellis and White
Owner: Oldham (née Morris), Emma (1829 - 1915)
Credit notes: Transfer from Walthamstow Central Library, 1951

This is a first edition of Love is Enough published by Ellis and White, a publisher owned by Frederick Startridge Ellis and David White. The stamped gold decoration on the cover, with the title surrounded by willow leaves, was designed by William Morris. He gave this copy to his sister, Emma Oldham and it is inscribed “Emma Oldham from her most affectionate Brother William Morris Dec. 7th 1872”.

Details

Object Type: book
Material: paper
Catalogue number: K2614
Author: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Designer: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Author: Hyndman, Henry Mayers (1842 - 1921)
Printer: The Modern Press

This pamphlet was written by William Morris and Henry Hyndman for the Social Democratic Federation, Morris also designed the title page. Morris joined the SDF at its inaugural meeting in June 1881. He had always felt uneasy about the disparity between his comfortable lifestyle and the conditions endured by most of the British working classes. In the 1880s he began working towards overthrowing the system that enabled the rich to profit from their labour, going on marches, writing articles and lecturing all over the country.

Morris and Hyndman had a strained relationship as Morris disagreed with Hyndman’s obsession with parliamentary politics to the detriment of trade union organisation. Morris broke from the SDF in 1884 and went on to establish the Socialist League, a more radical group that sought a revolutionary overturn by the mobilised working classes.

Throughout the decade of his most strenuous political engagement, Morris’s continued to run his business. He did not see campaigning as incompatible with his design work and deeply regretted that his products were so expensive.

Details

Date: 1930
Dimensions: 24 x 17.8
Object Type: book
Catalogue number: K3462
Author: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Author: Bottomley, Gordon (1874 - 1948)
Publisher: The Fanfrolico Press
Credit notes: Gift from Lucia Crowden, 2022

Published in 1930 by The Fanfrolico Press, this privately printed book contains two poems by William Morris that are accompanied by eight collotype plates after drawings by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The Fanfrolico Press began in Sydney, Australia and later moved to London, where this book was printed and published. The two poems included, ‘The Defense of Guenevere’ and ‘King Arthur’s Tomb’ stem from Morris’s early interest in Arthurian legends and were first published by Morris in 1858.

The book is printed on handmade Barcham Green paper from Hayle Mill in Kent, it is printed in Weiss Antiqua type which was designed by the German typographer Emil Rudolf Weiss in 1928. It is the seventh book printed by The Fanfrolico Press and this copy is edition 220 of 450.

Details

Date: 06.1911
Dimensions: 14.4 x 11.5
Object Type: book
Catalogue number: K1597a
Publisher: Morris & Co. Decorators Ltd, 449 Oxford Street, London
Printer: Chiswick Press
Sitter: Campfield, George, 1861, 1898

Published by Morris & Co. in 1911 to celebrate their 50th anniversary, this book provides a history of the company and a summary of their different products. It also contains photographs of the company’s factory at Merton Abbey and an image of their showroom at 449 Oxford Street. The illustration of ‘Washing Chints in the Wandle’ (p.43) was also published in Lewis F Day’s ‘William Morris and his Art’ (Art Journal, 1899), indicating that some, or all of this series of photographs of Merton Abbey are earlier than 1911.

The illustrations include:

‘The Indigo Vat’

‘Hand Weaving Looms at Merton Abbey’

‘Printing Morris Chintzes’

‘Washing Chintz in the Wandle’

‘Arras Tapestry Looms’

Details

Date: 1868
Dimensions: 20.8 x 14.9 x 3.9
Object Type: book
Material: paper in green cloth binding
Catalogue number: K3451
Publisher: Ellis, Frederick Startridge (1830 - 1901)
Author: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Credit notes: Gift from Alex Bray, 2021

Taking the form of a compendium of different narratives, ‘The Earthly Paradise’ is an epic poem structured as a frame story, similar to Geoffrey Chaucer’s ‘Canterbury Tales’. It tells the story of a group of Norsemen who have fled a plague in Europe in search of the mythical earthly paradise. Eventually they come to a land where the inhabitants still worship the ancient Greek gods. They decide to stay here and each month the wanderers and the city elders exchange tales. ‘The Earthly Paradise’ contains the tales from a whole year, comprising twenty-four stories. Through this narrative Morris draws both upon Greek myths and Medieval Romance tales, including Icelandic Eddas and Sagas.

This first edition contains parts I and II covering the general prologue, ‘The Wanderers’, and months March to August. It includes tales such as ‘The Story of Cupid and Psyche’, ‘The Son of Crœsus’ and ‘Pygmalion and the Image’. The first edition of the poem was very well received and Morris went on to publish parts III and IV to complete the twelve-month cycle.

As the first edition of parts I and II did not specify it only contained the first two parts of the full 24 story collection, a revised title-page and spine label for the first volume was included in the first edition of part IV. The spine label and title page were amended for subsequent editions published by F.S. Ellis.

Object Type: book

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