n Mi KK mma wmiflmoi '/:-': sm r- THE BOOKS OF WILLIAM MORRIS. o THE BOOKS OF WILLIAM MORRIS DESCRIBED WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF HIS DOINGS IN LITEEATUEE AND IN THE ALLIED CEAFTS BY H. BUXTON FORMAN, C.B., Author of " Our Living Poets," " The Shelley Library," etc., and Editor of the Works of Shelley and Keats LONDON Frank Hollings, 7 Great Turnstile, Holborn 1897 — ———:; DEDICATION TO MAURICE BUXTON FORMAN OF CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA. Dear Son, — In this poor gift there's fitness ; For when into the world you came, You got—and let this leaf bear witness A twice associated name. Our well-belov'd friend Bucke's prenonien We gave you—and the letters show it Still, we'd an eye upon the omen That that same name described a poet. Tis naught but simple truth I'm telling Two sponsors' names in one we found, With some slight difference in the spelling And none whatever in the sound. While yet a lad you loved to walk about The book-room mingling lore with chaff; And well you knew some tomes I talk about In this my biobibliograph. Later, the "midnight lamp" has seen us In that same book-room all alone ; But since the Atlantic heaved between us Those Morris rows have grown and grown And still with every teeming year That made the listening world his debtor I grew to hold the man more dear And ever loved the poet better. (Ah ! Morris, it was well to know you Whatever comes of it, it was well Though dry the sprigs of bay I throw you, Right fain I were to be your Boswell !) So long, dear Boy ! The ship's in port That scores the Atlantic east and west Those rollers huge she'll make her sport, And bring you this at my behest. ^98 CONTENTS. PAGE Preface ....... xiii Introduction : The Life Poetic as lived by Morris . 3 Beginnings : The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, Sir Galahad, The Defence of Guenevere &c. 21 Queen Square : Jason, The Earthly Paradise, Sagas 45 Horrington House : Love is Enough, Sagas, Virgil, The Two Sides of the Eiver &c, Sigurd the Volsung . .79 Kelmscott House : Lectures, Letters &c. on Public Ques- tions . .93 Socialism : Lectures, Poems, Articles, Treatises, Prefaces and Newspapers . 107 Signs of Change : John Ball, The House of the Wolfings, The Boots of the Mountains, News from Nowhere ..... 137 The Kelmscott Press and the Editiones Principes issued from it ...... 155 Appendix : Additional Information, including Lists of Contributions to Periodicals &c, of Lectures and Addresses reported, and of the Kelmscott Publica- tions ....... 195 ILLUSTRATIONS. Portrait of Morris from a Photograph by Hollyer Frontispiece Design for letter " h" of the Golden type, opposite page 14 Specimens of the three Kelmscott Founts ,, ,, ,, Book-mark used in the smaller Kelmscott Volumes . ,, ,, „ Book-mark used in the Beowulf and other large Kelmscott Volumes . „ ,, 15 PAGE Sir Galahad, a Christmas Mystery, bound in Morocco by Eiviere . .... 20 Typographical border and Ornamental Letters from Oxford and Cambridge Magazine . .22 Heading and Ornamental Letters from Oxford and Cambridge Magazine . .24 The Wood-cut or Book-mark made for The Earthly Paradise . .44 The Debased Eeproduction of the same . .49 Frontispiece to the Boston (Mass.) Lovers of Gudrun 61 Kelmscott House from a Drawing by H. J. Howard . 92 The Wrapper of Principles of Socialism as designed by Morris for the First Edition . 104 The same as re-arranged for the later Issues . 105 Heading for The Commonweal designed by Morris with Willow Back-ground . .112 Freedom, Equality, Fraternity : Heading for The Commonweal designed by Walter Crane . .113 Educate, Agitate, Organize : Heading for Publications of the Socialist League, designed by Walter Crane . 113 xii Illustrations. PAGE Labour and Justice : Heading for Publications of the Hammersmith Socialist Society, designed by Walter Crane . .113 Card of Membership designed by Walter Crane for the Hammersmith Branch of the Socialist League . 122 Alfred Linnell killed in Trafalgar Square : Memorial Design by Walter Crane .... 129 Portrait Book-Plate designed by Walter Crane for the Hammersmith Branch of the Socialist League to insert in a Set of Books presented to Morris's Daughter May on her marriage to H. Halliday Sparling . .136 Labour's May-Day : Cartoon by Walter Crane, as reduced for Frontispiece of News from Nowhere . 147 Verso Title-page or Frontispiece designed by Morris for the Illustrated Quarto Edition of The Glittering Plain ....... 154 No. 14 Upper Mall, Hammersmith (The Kelmscott Press), from a Drawing by H. J. Howard . 155 Verso Title-page or Frontispiece designed by Morris for The Tale of King Florus and the Fair Jehane 173 St. George and the Dragon : Monogram Book-mark of Mr. George Allen, designed by Walter Crane . 176 Europa and the Bull : Monogram Book-mark of Messrs. Lawrence and Bullen, designed by Walter Crane . 178 Eeduced Fac-simile from Holograph First Draft of The Well at the World's End . 185 Ornamental Initial Word designed by Morris for The Well at the World's End . 187 Ornamental Initial Word designed by Morris for the Kelmscott Folio Chaucer . 189 PREFACE. HPHE objects of the present work may be stated in few words. Convinced that " the world of books is still," of all worlds in which an artist is privileged to live, the most " living world" I have thought that a true presentment of the man would be the natural result of setting forth in a connected narrative the public appearances of Morris in literature, from the time when, as an undergraduate, he founded and maintained The Oxfoed and Cambridge Magazine, to the quite recent date on which his trustees issued the last but one of the posthumous tvrittngs destined to come from his Kelmscott Press. It is a great record as well as a long one. It is one in connexion toith which the student and collector of this latter end of the nineteenth century is entitled to look for exact bibliographical knowledge ; and I have tried to weave that knowledge into the thread of the narrative in such a manner as to present, with the aid of typo- graphical arrangements and some pictorial illustration, a true portraiture of each book, and always xoith the hope that some- ivhere in the vicinity of such portraiture there will be something written or depicted to conjure up in the reader's eye at least the shadoiuy image of the man who lives in each and all of Morris's many books. With that aim, it seemed best to begin by giving a sum- mary appreciation of the facts of his public life. Apart from his doings in literature, which it is the main purpose of the xiv Preface. following pages to record and illustrate, the epochs of his life are so many important chapters in the history of arts and crafts in England, and in the social and political movement tuhich is still going on for the benefit of the handicraftsman. It ivill not be for me to deal at large with the period ivhen he started his business undertaking on cesthetic grounds to reform our views of colour, curve, line, texture—in a word, our tastes—or to shoiu how this threw him into those relations ivith handicraftsmen ivhich could lead his generous heart but one way— to make the handicrafts- man's life joyful, as his was joyful ; for what man ever so joyed, so revelled, in twenty different methods of work as William Morris did ? Others will doubtless tell hoiu, in developing his views for the workmen, he enlarged his scope ; hoio from import- ing rough but comely pottery out of France, he got to influencing the manufacture and securing the distribution of de Morgan lustre —a lost art revived ; how from bringing home Eastern carpets he grew to see that, after all, these were not the fittest and best for our Western civilization, and how he set up his dye-works and looms and made fabrics and carpets which will influence the taste of the Western world when he has been dead a century. More important still will be the history of how he entered into the practical side of the Socialist propaganda and went on fearlessly till convinced, not that he would come to harm—for he had always all to lose and nothing to gain—but that "ructions with police," as he phrased it, would injure the cause. And history will have to tell sooner or later the tale of his seeing what a base, mechanical thing was become this great art of printing of ours, and of his setting up the Kelmscott Press, to issue books in which every letter should be beautiful. But I cannot help recalling here that, just as his friends and dependents were laying him to rest in the quiet little Oxfordshire village which gives that press its name, the fortunate possessors of the great folio Chaucer edited by his old friend Frederick Ellis and beautified by the stately and profoundly sympathetic pictures of Preface. xv his older friend Sir Edward Burne- Jones, were turning in wonder the 'pages of one of the noblest boohs ever printed. It is some satisfaction to remember that the brave man and great artist who crammed the joyous labour of three life-times into sixty-two years and a half taking the rough with the smooth to benefit his humbler fellow-craftsmen, saw with his eyes this crowning work of many applied arts and crafts before he entered into his rest. For much information cheerfully supplied, for drawings or blocks lent for purposes of illustration, for permission to use copyright designs or tvorks, my thanks are due to many friends and correspondents.