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.
