May Morris’s Bookplate

Details

Date: June 1890
Dimensions: 25.9 x 19.6
Object Type: print
Material: paper
Technique: woodblock
Catalogue number: P807
Artist: Crane, Walter, 1845, 1915
Owner: Morris | May | 1862 | 1938
Maker: Hooper, William Harcourt (1834 - 1912)

This woodblock printed bookplate, inscribed ‘From the Branch to its Flower’, was designed by Walter Crane and engraved by W.H. Hooper to accompany a wedding gift of books from the Hammersmith Branch of the Socialist League to May Morris. The gift was accompanied with a message signed by 30 members saying ‘You have lived among us and have worked for us with your best strength’. The bookplate’s design incorporates three ‘caps of liberty’ in each corner.

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: 1889
Dimensions: 23.8 x 16.4
Object Type: book
Material: ink on paper
Technique: woodblock
Catalogue number: K113
Designer: Mackmurdo | Arthur Heygate | 1851 | 1942

Preface and pp.1-2 of periodical. Initium ‘T’ decorated with ivy for following text.A PREFACE. THE ISSUE OF THIS PERIO/ DICAL BY THE PROPRIETORS DIRECTLY/ FROM THE CHISWICK PRESS, SO THAT THEY/ MAY MORE NEARLY CARRY OUT THEIR ORI/ GINAL INTENTION, SEEMS TO PRESENT A FITTING OCCASION ON WHICH TO SUM UP AND/ MAKE CLEAR, WHAT, AS YET, LIES SCATTERED/ THROUGH THE SUCCESSIVE NUMBERS OF/ THE PAPER, NAMELY, ITS PRECISE AIMS AND/ THE VIEW OF ART SET FORTH IN IT. BRIEF/ LY, THEN, AS FAR AS SO WIDE-REACHING A/ SUBJECT CAN BE THUS TREATED IN THE/ SPACE OF A FEW PAGES, THESE CHIEFLY ARE/ THE PRINCIPLES OF WHAT WE HAVE EN/ DEVOURED TO SAY AND DO, IN THE THREE/ YEARS DURING WHICH THIS PERIODICAL HAS BEEN PUBLISHED.

Details

Date: 1903
Dimensions: 17.8 x 22.3
Object Type: book
Material: ink on paper
Technique: woodblock
Catalogue number: K245
Attributed designer: Image, Selwyn, 1849, 1930

This christmas card was designed by Selwyn image for Harold Hodge. It features a rabbit and tree design on the front and a poem by Emily Brontë printed inside

Technique: woodblock

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