The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs

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: 1893
Dimensions: 20.6 x 14.7 x 2.6 (closed)
Object Type: book
Catalogue number: K446
Manufacturer: Kelmscott Press | 1891 | 1898
Author: Rossetti | Dante Gabriel | 1828 | 1882
Credit notes: Transfer from Walthamstow Reference Library, 1953

Ballads and Narrative Poems was written by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Published by the Kelmscott Press in 1893, 310 were printed on paper and a further six on paper. The book is printed on paper and is set in Golden type in red and black ink. The woodcut frontispiece was designed by William Morris, along with the title, borders and initials. Ballads and Narrative Poems was part of a two volume set of works by Rossetti. A few months after this first volume was produced, the Kelmscott Press published Rossetti’s Sonnets and Lyrical Poems (K447).

Details

Date: 1870
Dimensions: 19.7 x 13 x 3
Object Type: book
Catalogue number: K531
Translator: Magnusson, Eirikr (1833 - 1913)
Translator: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Publisher: Ellis, Frederick Startridge (1830 - 1901)
Designer: Webb | Philip | 1831 | 1915
Credit notes: Transfer from Walthamstow Central Library, 1951

‘The Story of the Volsungs and Niblungs’ is a translation of The Völsunga saga (often referred to in English as the Volsunga Saga or Saga of the Völsungs). This legendary saga is a late 13th-century poetic rendition in Old Norse of the origin and decline of the Völsung clan. It was translated for the first time into English by William Morris and Eirikr Magnusson in 1870. Morris wrote: “This is the great story of the North, which should be to all our race what the Tale of Troy was to the Greeks”.

Eirikr Magnusson was born in Iceland, he came to England in 1862 and went on to work at the library of the Univerity of Cambridge, as well as lecturing on the Icelandic language. He met Morris in the summer of 1868 and taught him Old Norse. The pair became good friends, and shortly after Morris suggested they translate the sagas together.

This first edition of the Crown octavo book has green cloth binding with stamped gold pattern designed by Philip Webb. Rossetti wrote on 7 May 1870 “His binding for the Volsungs is most lovely- quite perfect”. 750 copies of the book were printed.

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: 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: 4.3.1898
Object Type: book
Material: paper in quarter holland binding
Catalogue number: K260
Author: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Author: Cockerell, Sydney Carlyle (1867 - 1962)
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Designer: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Printer: Kelmscott Press | 1891 | 1898
Publisher: Kelmscott Press | 1891 | 1898
Seller: Trustees of the William Morris Estate
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1952

A Note by William Morris etc. was the last book to have been printed at the Kelmscott Press before its closure and the original illustration is set in one of the open-work vine borders which Morris designed for his K.P. books.

The wood-engraved illustration, ‘Psyche borne off by Zephyrus’, designed by Burne-Jones and cut by Morris, was one of those originally made for the projected illustrated edition of Morris’s The Earthly Paradise 1865-68. After Morris’s death in October 1896, an attempt was made to print the Story of Cupid and Psyche from The Earthly Paradise together with the original wood engravings made in 1865-68; this edition, to be printed at the Kelmscott Press, was to have been published by Bernard Quaritch, and a few trial pages were pulled in January 1897. [see K774 and K775] at the closure of the Kelmscott Press in 1898, the printing was to have been carried out by the Chiswick Press, but following the death of Burne-Jones, who was to have revised some of the illustrations for this edition, in June 1898, the edition was abandoned.

525 copies were printed on paper at 10s, 12 and on vellum at 2 guineas.

Details

Date: 15 November 1897
Object Type: book
Catalogue number: K10
Artist: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Author: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1950

This was the last romance written by Morris; it was begun in December 1895, the last words being dictated on 8 September 1896, a month or so before he died. This edition by the Kelmscott Press was overseen by May Morris, it is dated 15 November 1897 (issued 25 February 1898). 300 copies were printed on paper at 2 guineas, none on vellum. Printed on paper with ‘Flower’ watermark in Chaucer type in black and red with borders and woodcut initials designed by Morris, with a map by H. Cribb.

Details

Date: 2.4.1892
Dimensions: 21 x 15 x 2 cm.
Object Type: book
Catalogue number: K255
Author: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Designer: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Publisher: Kelmscott Press | 1891 | 1898
Seller: Reeves & Turner
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1952

‘The Defence of Guenevere’, Morris’s first volume of poems, was originally published by Bell & Daldy 1858. Owing to a number of errors in this first edition an errata slip was included in this first edition. However, when the book was reprinted by Ellis & White in 1875, these errors were not wholly corrected and many of them also appear in the text of the Kelmscott Press edition. This was the first Kelmscott Press book to be bound in limp vellum and the only one in which the title was inscribed by hand on the spine. This copy was given by William Morris to his good friend Georgian Burne-Jones and is inscribed by him with the date 22nd May 1892. 300 copies were printed on paper at 2 guineas, 10 on vellum at about 12 guineas and sold by Reeves & Turner.

Details

Date: 1892
Object Type: book
Catalogue number: K16
Author: Ruskin, John, 1819, 1900
Publisher: Kelmscott Press | 1891 | 1898
Designer: William Morris Gallery

This text changed Morris’s life. He described it as ‘one of the very few necessary and inevitable utterances of the century’. Its author, John Ruskin, compares Victorian art unfavourably with medieval art. He argues that industrialisation
has stifled creativity and damaged both art and society. This version was published by Morris’s Kelmscott Press and includes a preface by Morris. It is set Golden type, a font designed by Morris, and is printed on paper with still vellum binding with ties. The woodcut initials and ornament are also by Morris.

Details

Date: 1891
Dimensions: 20.6 x 14 (closed)
Object Type: book
Material: paper
Catalogue number: K967
Author: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Publisher: Reeves & Turner
Owner: Morris, Jenny (1861 - 1935)
Credit notes: Miss E. M. Pugh Bequest, 1963

Morris’s ‘News From Nowhere’ was first published in serial form in Commonweal in 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 Gere, shows the entrance to Kelmscott Manor, Morris’s country home in Oxfordshire.

Details

Date: 1896-1897
Object Type: book
Catalogue number: K1013.1
Artist: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Publisher: Kelmscott Press | 1891 | 1898
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1964

Eight volumes of William Morris’s The Earthly Paradise, printed by The Kelmscott Press and bound in white vellum. 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 Saga.

Printed on medium quarto size paper in Golden type in red and black, woodcut title, borders and initials. Published by the Kelmscott Press, 1896-97. Bound in original limp vellum, with ties, uncut. Bookplate of Herbert S. Squance.

Details

Date: 1896-1897
Object Type: book
Catalogue number: K1013.7
Artist: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Publisher: Kelmscott Press | 1891 | 1898
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1964

Details

Date: 1896-1897
Object Type: book
Catalogue number: K1013.6
Artist: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Publisher: Kelmscott Press | 1891 | 1898
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1964

Details

Date: 1896-1897
Object Type: book
Catalogue number: K1013.5
Artist: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Publisher: Kelmscott Press | 1891 | 1898
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1964

Details

Date: 1896-1897
Object Type: book
Catalogue number: K1013.4
Artist: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Publisher: Kelmscott Press | 1891 | 1898
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1964

Details

Date: 1896-1897
Object Type: book
Catalogue number: K1013.4
Artist: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Publisher: Kelmscott Press | 1891 | 1898
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1964

Details

Date: 1896-1897
Object Type: book
Catalogue number: K1013.3
Artist: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Publisher: Kelmscott Press | 1891 | 1898
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1964

Details

Date: 1896-1897
Object Type: book
Catalogue number: K1013.2
Artist: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Publisher: Kelmscott Press | 1891 | 1898
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1964

Details

Date: 1896-1897
Object Type: book
Catalogue number: K1013.8
Artist: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Publisher: Kelmscott Press | 1891 | 1898
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1964

Details

Date: 01.1850
Object Type: book
Catalogue number: K72
Author: The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
Designer: Hunt, William Holman, 1827, 1910
Publisher: Aylott and Jones
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1951

The Germ was a magazine established in 1850 at the beginning of the Pre-Raphaelite movement by its founding members Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and, editor and ‘historian’ of the movement, William Michael Rossetti. Born out of an idea of D G Rossetti’s, the magazine sought to circulate the creative work and radical ideas of the Pre-Raphaelites as expressed in poetry, literature and art.

Details

Date: c.1636
Dimensions: 34.3 x 24.1
Object Type: book
Catalogue number: K776
Author: Gerard, John (1545 - 1612)
Credit notes: WMG Purchase, 1956

This 17th century herbal belonged to William Morris and contained useful information about the dye properties of various plants. The edition has 18thC Russian gilt binding (gold tooled border on exterior and interior of front and back covers) and a spine with raised blind bands

The book was in Westdean Library from 1813, acquired by William Morris 1890 (?) sold by Jane Morris, Sotheby’s December 1898, purchased by Wilfred Scawen Blunt by whom given Christmas 1906 to Sir Sydney Cockerell. Sold at Cockerell sale Sotheby’s 10 Dec 1956 (lot 115) bought by William Morris Gallery.

A note inside shows that Wilfred Scawen Blunt ‘coloured the figures as I found each plant, mostly at Newbuildings’, the name of his residence in West Sussex.

Details

Date: 1885
Object Type: book
Material: paper
Catalogue number: K604
Author: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Author: Bax, Ernest Belford (1854 - 1926)
Publisher: Socialist League Office
Credit notes: Transfer from Walthamstow Central Library, 1951

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: c.1868
Dimensions: 10.8 x 16
Object Type: book
Technique: wood engraving
Catalogue number: K726
Designer: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Maker: Burden, Elizabeth (13.12.1841 - 22.08.1924)
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1954

This is one of a series of 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. This particular illustration was engraved by Elizabeth Burden, it was the only one she did for the series. 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. One of these sets, given to Cockerell by Jane Morris c.1898, is bound into a single volume (K775) owned by the William Morris Gallery. Other sets are in the Pierpont Morgan Library (Gift of John M. Crawford) and the Fitzwilliam Museum (J.R. Holliday Bequest 1927).

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.

For another early proof on proof paper see WMG: K726a.

Details

Date: 1885
Object Type: book
Material: paper
Catalogue number: K604a
Author: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Author: Bax, Ernest Belford (1854 - 1926)
Publisher: Socialist League Office
Credit notes: Transfer from Walthamstow Central Library, 1951

Details

Date: 1883
Dimensions: 24 x 17.3
Object Type: book
Material: paper
Catalogue number: K935
Artist: Mackmurdo | Arthur Heygate | 1851 | 1942
Printer: Hazell, Watson & Viney Ltd., London
Publisher: Allen, George
Credit notes: Miss E.M. Pugh Bequest, 1963

Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo and William Morris met through their involvement in the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. This book was published to increase appreciation for the work of seventeenth-century architect Christopher Wren, but it was the title-page that caused the greatest stir. The print on the cover show sinuous, undulating leaves and flowers through which a streamer bearing the title winds, it is flanked at either side by the attenuated form of a peacock.

This edition is smaller edition is in the octavo format and does not feature the Century Guild’s stamp which is seen on the front cover of the larger, quarto editions.

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.

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

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: 1896
Object Type: book
Material: paper with half holland binding
Catalogue number: K20
Manufacturer: Kelmscott Press | 1891 | 1898
Author: Chaucer, Geoffrey (1340 - 1400)
Artist: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Illustrator: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1951

During the last years of William Morris’s life, he was often occupied with the ambitious Kelmscott Press edition of ‘The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer’. The project involved printing a new edition of the complete works of Geoffrey Chaucer with decorated borders and initials, a newly designed typeface and numerous illustrations by Edward Burne-Jones. The book took over four years to complete and included eighty-seven woodcut illustrations by Burne-Jones.

The Kelmscott ‘Chaucer’ was the last great project of Morris’s life and combined his passions for literature and design. The printing of the book also reflected ideas from Morris’s socialist philosophy regarding the division of labour and the rejection of modern mechanisation. In total 438 copies of the book were printed over two years, thirteen were printed on vellum and 425 on handmade paper. Forty-eight paper editions were specially bound in white pig’s skin featuring a design Morris had created. A few months before his death, Morris was shown a copy of the specially bound edition for the first time, which he described as ‘very satisfactory’.

Shown here is the first page of a paper edition of the Kelmscott ‘Chaucer’. The title page, initial letters, and border decoration were all designed by Morris. The first woodcut illustration by Burne-Jones can also be seen and shows a portrait of Chaucer. Morris had to scale down his ‘Troy’ typeface for the Kelmscott Chaucer creating the font seen here. Despite the scaled down font, the book is by far the largest produced by the Kelmscott Press.

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: 1884
Object Type: book
Material: paper
Catalogue number: K591d

This pamphlet was written by William Morris and Henry Hyndman for the Social Democratic Federation, Morris also designed the title page. Morris 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: c.1865-68
Dimensions: 16.1 x 15.7
Object Type: book
Technique: wood engraving
Catalogue number: K792
Designer: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Maker: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1956

This is one of a series of 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.

Details

Date: c.1865-68
Dimensions: 10.5 x 15.8
Object Type: book
Technique: wood engraving
Catalogue number: K791
Designer: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Maker: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1956

This is one of a series of 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.

Details

Date: c.1865-68
Dimensions: 16.1 x 15.7
Object Type: book
Technique: wood engraving
Catalogue number: K730
Designer: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Maker: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1954

This is one of a series of 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.

Details

Date: c.1868
Dimensions: 10.4 x 15.8
Object Type: book
Technique: wood engraving
Catalogue number: K720
Designer: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Maker: Morris, William (1834 - 1896)
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1954

This is one of a series of 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.

Details

Date: c.1868
Dimensions: 10.9 x 16
Object Type: book
Technique: wood engraving
Catalogue number: K726a
Designer: Burne-Jones | Edward Coley | Sir | 1833 | 1898
Maker: Burden, Elizabeth (13.12.1841 - 22.08.1924)
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1954

This is one of a series of 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, this particular illustration was engraved by Elizabeth Burden, it was the only one she did for the series. 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.

For another early proof on proof paper see WMG: K726.

Object Type: book

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