The Earthly Paradise is an epic poem structured as a frame story, composed of a number of different narratives. Morris published the first volume of The Earthly Paradise in 1868 after a ten year break from publishing following a poor reception to his earlier written work ‘The Defence of Guenevere’ in 1857. Despite this, the first volume of The Earthly Paradise was a great success and Morris went on to publish further volumes until 1870. This Kelmscott Press edition is the first in an eight-volume set held at the William Morris Gallery.
In Morris’s poem, a group of Norsemen flee a plague in Europe in search of the mythical earthly paradise, where they will never grow old. However, their search is unfruitful and they become ‘shrivelled, bent, and grey’ during their lengthy quest. Eventually they come to a land where the inhabitants still worship the ancient Greek gods. They decide to stay there and each month, the wanderers and the city elders exchange tales. The poem lasts a whole year, comprising twenty-four stories. Through this narrative, Morris draws both upon Greek myths and medieval romance tales, including Icelandic sagas.
The Earthly Paradise helped to forge Morris’s reputation as a poet. In fact all of his subsequent books were sold as “by the author of The Earthly Paradise”. Today we might think of William Morris primarily as a designer, but during his lifetime he was known best as a writer.
