Chapter XII: The End (1)

The end with Morris seemed to come suddenly, although for months and even for years there had been warnings of its approach. He had enjoyed--and greatly enjoyed--unusual strength and vitality up to almost his sixtieth year. The seeds of gout were in his constitution, and from attacks of this disease he occasionally suffered, but not until the one occurring in the spring of 1891, just as the Kelmscott Press was getting under way, did they give reason for alarm. At that time other complications were discovered and he was told that he must consider himself an invalid. After this, as we have seen, he plunged with rapture into new undertakings involving the use of all his faculties, and carried them on with no apparent lessening of intellectual vigour. But he had too long overtaxed his physical frame by his extraordinary labours, and especially by his activity in the cause of Socialism, which had led him out in all weathers and under the most adverse conditions. By the beginning of 1895 he began to show plainly the weakness that had been gaining on him, and to admit it, though still keeping busy at his various occupations. His increasing illness brought home to him the thought of that final check upon his activities which he had always found so difficult to conceive. "If," he said, "it merely means that I am to be laid up for a little while, it doesn't so much matter, you know; but if I am to be caged up here for months, and then it is to be the end of all things, I shouldn't like it at all. This has been a jolly world to me and I find plenty to do in it."

As the folio _Chaucer_ advanced through the Press, he grew impatient, no doubt fearing that he would not see its completion, and it is pleasant to read of his gratification when a completed copy reached him, bound in the cover designed by himself. Late in July, 1896, by the recommendation of his physician he took a sea voyage, going to Norway for the bracing influences of its air and associations. No benefit was gained, however, and on his return a congestion of one lung set in that proved unyielding, while his general weakness was such that he was unable to cross the threshold of his room. We find him responding to an old friend who had urged him to try the effect of the pure air of Swainslow, that this was the case and he could not come, but was "absolutely delighted to find another beautiful place which is still in its untouched loveliness." Up to the last he did a little work, dictating the final passage of _The Sundering Flood_ less than a month before his death, which occurred in his home at Hammersmith on the morning of the 3rd of October, 1896. He died without apparent suffering, and surrounded by his friends. He had lived almost sixty-three years in the "jolly world" wherein he had found so much to do, but he left the impression of having been cut down in the flower of his life.

His burial was in keeping with those tastes and preferences that had meant so much to him. The strong oak coffin in which he was laid was of an ancient, simple shape, with handles of wrought iron, and the pall that covered it was a strip of rich Anatolian velvet from his own collection of textiles. He was carried from Lechlade station to the little Kelmscott church in an open hay-cart, cheerful in colour, with bright red wheels, and festooned with vines, alder, and bulrushes. The bearers and the drivers of the country waggons in which his friends followed him to his grave were farmers of the neighbourhood clad in their moleskins, people who had lost, said one of them, "a dear good friend in Master Morris." The hearse, with its bright decorations and the little group of mourners wound their way along pleasant country roads, beaten upon by a storm of unusual fury. "The north-west wind bent trees and bushes," writes one of those who were present, "turning the leaves of the bird maples back upon their footstalks, making them look like poplars, and the rain beat on the straggling hedges, the lurid fruit, such as only grows in rural England,--the fruit of privet with ripe hips and haws; the foliage of the Guelder roses hung on the bushes; along the road a line of slabs of stone extended, reminding one of Portugal; ragweed and loosestrife, with rank hemp agrimony, were standing dry and dead, like reeds beside a lake, and in the rain and wind the yokels stood at the cross-roads, or at the openings of the bridle-paths."

In _News from Nowhere_ Morris describes Kelmscott Church, with its little aisle divided from the nave by three round arches, its windows, "mostly of the graceful Oxfordshire fourteenth-century type," and the interior trimmed with flowers for a village merrymaking. On the day of his burial, by a curious coincidence it was trimmed with fruits of the harvest in preparation for the autumn festival. The service was read by an old schoolfellow and friend, and Morris was left to his rest "from patience and from pain" in the place he had best loved and to which in his final weakness he had longed to return.

In regarding Morris through the medium of his work it is difficult to gain a coherent impression. He turned one side and another to the world with such rapidity of succession as to give a sense of kaleidoscopic change. What new combination of colour and form his activities would take was always impossible to forecast. And the thing that he was doing seemed to him at the time the one thing in the world that was worth doing, the one thing that "a reasonable and healthy man" would make it his pleasure to do. Yet, as we have seen, all these pursuits taken up by him with so much zest and laid down by him with such suddenness, fitted harmoniously and accurately into the plan of his life, which, with the decade of militant Socialism deducted, presented a smooth and even surface, unbroken by any violent change of circumstance or method or motive. He has been described by nearly all who have written of him as "a rebel," and a rebel he was in the true Quixotic sense, his lance in rest to charge at any moment against any windmill of convention that might offend him. A friend who was once talking with him about a forthcoming election to the London School Board, expressing a hope that the progressive party would win,--"Well," said Morris, striding up and down, "I am not sure that a clerical victory would not be a good thing. I was educated at Marlborough under clerical masters, and I naturally rebelled against them. Had they been advanced men, my spirit of rebellion would probably have led me to conservatism merely as a protest. One naturally defies authority, and it may be well that the London School Board should be controlled by Anglican parsons, in order that the young rebels in the schools may grow up to defy and hate church authority." His own "natural" defiance of authority entailed what seems to the ordinary toiler in harness a waste of his extraordinary gifts. His work was most of it in the experimental stage when he left it. He was too content to point the road without following to the end his own direction. "He did not learn a trade in the natural way, from those who knew, and seek then to better the teaching of his masters," says one of his fellow-workers in arts and crafts, "but, acknowledging no master, except perhaps the ancients, he would worry it out always for himself. He had a wonderful knack of learning that way."[4] He had a wonderful knack also of persuading himself that there was no other to learn, and Goldsmith's criticism of Burke--that he spent much of his time "cutting blocks with a razor"--has been happily applied to him. But it is doubtful whether he would have made as strong an impression on his generation as he did if he had devoted his time to one branch of art and worked along conventional lines. His greatest gift was not so much the ability to produce art, artistic though he was in faculty and feeling, as it was the ability to make people see the difference between the kind of beauty to which his eyes were open and the ugliness commonly preferred to it. Nothing is so convincing as to see a man accomplish with his own hands what he has declared possible for anyone to accomplish. Morris's continual illustration of his theories was perhaps more useful in awakening interest in just the matters which he had at heart than any more patient pursuit of an ideal less readily achieved. He had the habit when listening to questions and criticisms after his lectures of tracing charming rapid designs on paper. On a large scale that is what he did throughout his life: lecture people about the way to make things, and by way of proving his point, turn off delightful examples of the things he describes. "It is very easy" he seems to say; "watch me for a moment, and we will then pass on."

Considered superficially, he appeared the very prince of paradox. Art was a word continually on his lips, the future and fortunes of art were constantly in his mind, yet for the greatest art of the world he had few words, and the most passing interest. The names of Raphael and Leonardo, Giotto, Duerer, Rembrandt, Velasquez, were seldom if ever on his lips. Art had for him an almost single meaning, namely, the beauty produced by humble workers as an every-day occurrence and for every day's enjoyment, art by the people and for the people. So individual that he will never be forgotten by those who have once seen him and heard his voice raised in its inevitable protest, he nevertheless preached a kind of communism in which any high degree of individuality must have been submerged.

His preferences among books, as might be assumed, were clearly marked, and a list of his favourite authors contains many contrasts. Once asked to contribute to the _Pall Mall Gazette_ his opinions on "the best hundred books," he complied by naming those which, he said, had most profoundly impressed him, excluding all which he considered merely as tools and not as works of art. True to himself, he starts the list with books "of the kind Mazzini calls Bibles," books which are "in no sense the work of individuals, but have grown up from the very hearts of the people." Among these are "the Hebrew Bible (excluding some twice-done parts and some pieces of mere Jewish ecclesiasticism), _Homer_, _Hesiod_, _The Edda_ (including some of the other early old Norse romantic genealogical poems), _Beowulf_, _Kalevale_, _Shahnameh_, _Mahabharata_, collections of folk tales headed by Grimm and the Norse ones, Irish and Welsh traditional poems."

After these "Bibles" follow the "_real_ ancient imaginative works: _Herodotus_, _Plato_, _AEschylus_, _Sophocles_, _Aristophanes_, _Theocritus_, _Lucretius_, _Catullus_." The greater part of the Latins were esteemed "_sham_ classics." "I suppose," says Morris in his character of reasonable man, "that they have some good literary qualities; but I cannot help thinking that it is difficult to find out how much. I suspect superstition and authority have influenced our estimate of them till it has become a mere matter of convention. Of course I admit the archaeological value of some of them, especially _Virgil_ and _Ovid_."

Next in importance to the Latin masterpieces he puts mediaeval poetry, Anglo-Saxon lyrical pieces (like the _Ruin_ and the _Exile_), Dante, Chaucer, _Piers Plowman_, _Nibelungenlied_, the Danish and Scotch-English Border Ballads, _Omar Khayyam_, "though I don't know how much of the charm of this lovely poem," he says, "is due to Fitzgerald, the translator"; other Arab and Persian poetry, _Reynard the Fox_, and a few of the best rhymed romances. Mediaeval story books follow, the _Morte d'Arthur_, _The Thousand and One Nights_, Boccaccio's _Decameron_, and the _Mabinogion_. After these, "modern poets" up to his own generation, "Shakespeare, Blake (the part of him which a mortal can understand), Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, Byron." German he could not read, so he left out German masterpieces. Milton he left out on account of his union of "cold classicalism with Puritanism" ("the two things which I hate most in the world," he said).

_Pilgrim's Progress_ heads the department of modern fiction, in which is also included _Robinson Crusoe_, _Moell Flanders_, _Colonel Jack_, _Captain Singleton_, _Voyage Round the World_, Scott's novels, "except the one or two which he wrote when he was hardly alive," the novels of the elder Dumas (the "good" ones), Victor Hugo, Dickens, and George Borrow. The list concludes with certain unclassified works, Ruskin, Carlyle, the _Utopia_, and Grimm's _Teutonic Mythology_. It may safely be assumed that no other list sent in by the "best judges" who responded to Mr. Stead's request in the least resembled this one, which was compiled with high sincerity and represented Morris quite fairly on the bookish side of his mind. Mr. Mackail mentions also among the volumes oftenest in his hands and "imposed upon his friends unflinchingly" Surtees's famous _Mr. Jorrocks_, and records that he considered _Huckleberry Finn_ America's masterpiece. For the Uncle Remus stories he had also a peculiar fondness, and for one of his cotton prints he designed what he called a "Brer Rabbit pattern."

The perversity that one marks in Morris beneath--or, perhaps, on the surface of--his essential seriousness, the tendency to whim and paradox so freely noted by his critics, may be attributed to his extraordinarily childlike spirit. His lack of restraint, his dislike of subtlety, his love of spontaneity, his inability to conform to conventions, his hatred of gloom, austerity, and introspection, his readiness to throw himself into enjoyment of the smallest subject that happened to come within the range of his interest, his unflagging vigour, his unjaded humour, all qualities copiously commented upon by his friends, testify to the youthfulness of his temperament, which was like that of a child, also in a certain apparently unpremeditated reticence, an inability to reveal itself fully or satisfactorily to even his closest intimates. What is most attractive and appealing in him is doubtless due to his freedom from artificialities and from the sophistries that ordinarily come with age, but what is noblest in him, and most impressive in the effect produced by his accomplishment, is due to a quality of which a child is and should be ignorant, a sense of personal responsibility. Without this he would have been a pitiful figure, disoriented, and inharmonious with the world into which he was born. It was his persistent unwearying effort to set the crooked straight by example as well as by precept, and in defiance of a certain paradoxical mental languor that flowed by the side of his energy and impulse, which made him an influence to be counted with among the many conflicting influences of his generation. While he counselled he produced, while he preached he laboured. Declaring that work could and should be lovely, he demonstrated in his own life how intensely one man loved it. He fought for the principle of art with the ardour other men have shown in fighting for the principle of political liberty. He held himself bound to justify his theories in his own action, and while it would be absurd to claim for him complete consistency and freedom from error in even this, it certainly guided him safely past the quicksands of empty and inflated rhetoric by which the expressed philosophy of his own great masters is marred. It will be remembered by those who share his admiration for Dickens that when the proprietor of Dotheboys Hall wished to teach his pupils to spell "window" he had them clean one. The effectiveness of such a method is deeper than the satire, and Morris was its most convincing exponent. What he learned out of books he tried at once to put into practice. He had the highest ideal of service:

How crown ye excellence of worth?
With leave to serve all men on earth,

and nothing deflected him from his efforts thus to serve in his own person the most crying needs of humanity as he conceived them.

Pretentiousness was his least defect. No priggish sense of virtue interfered with his consecration to what he believed were the highest interests of his fellow-men. The cant of the moralist was absolutely unused by him, and he was innocent of any intention to improve the morals of his companions. Get them happy, he thought, with a faith little less than magnificent, get them happy and they will be good. Nor was he guilty of aesthetic priggishness. Art was the concern of his mind and the desire of his heart, but it was by no means his meat and drink. He liked good food, and was proud of his connoisseurship in matters of cookery, and wines. Few things pleased him better than himself to take the cook's place and prove his practical skill. When asked for his opinions on the subject of temperance, he replied that so far as his own experience went he found his victuals dull without something to drink, and that tea and coffee were not fit liquors to be taken with food. He smoked his briarwood pipe with much satisfaction. In his daily habits he was thoroughly, aggressively human, and in nothing more so than in his candid admiration of the work of his own hands, a feeling in which there was no fatuity.

His biographer comments on the singular element of impersonality in his nature, speaking of him as moving among men and women "isolated, self-centred, almost empty of love or hatred," and quotes his most intimate friend's extreme statement that he lived "absolutely without the need of man or woman." In this idea of him those who knew him best seemed to agree, but from his own letters as represented in the biography, a stranger to him gains a different impression. His letters to his invalid daughter are in themselves sufficient to evoke in the mind of the reader an image of unlimited and poignant tenderness impossible to associate with the aloofness and lack of keen personal sympathy said to be characteristic of him. He did not give himself readily or rashly to intense feelings; but he seemed to feel within himself capacity for emotions of force so violent as to be destructive. When his friend Faulkner was stricken with paralysis and other trouble came upon the family, we find him writing: "It is such a grievous business altogether that, rightly or wrongly, I try not to think of it too much lest I should give way altogether, and make an end of what small use there may be in my life." Leaving out the case of Rossetti, there is no record of his having relinquished any friendship of importance, nor did he weary of constant intercourse with his friends. His habit of breakfasting with Burne-Jones on Sunday mornings and dining with him on Wednesdays was unbroken for many years. "The last three Sundays of his life," says this oldest and closest friend, "I went to him."

Loyalty, sincerity, simplicity, and earnestness, these are the qualities conspicuous in the fabric of his life. His influence upon his generation, so far as it may now be observed, has been definite but diffused. It may be doubted whether he would not have been best pleased to have it so, to know that his name will live chiefly as that of one who stimulated others toward art production of and interest in beautiful handiwork. But the last word to be said about him is that he was greater than his work.

BIBLIOGRAPHY[5]

1. _The Story of the Glittering Plain. Which has been also called The Land of Living Men or The Acre of the Undying._ Written by WILLIAM MORRIS. Small 4to. Golden type. Border 1. 200 paper copies at two guineas, and 6 on vellum. Dated April 4, issued May 8, 1891. Sold by Reeves & Turner. Bound in stiff vellum with wash leather ties.[6]

This book was set up from Nos. 81-84 of _The English Illustrated
Magazine_, in which it first appeared; some of the chapter headings
were rearranged, and a few small corrections were made in the text. A
trial page, the first printed at the Kelmscott Press, was struck off
on January 31, 1891, but the first sheet was not printed until about a
month later.[7] The border was designed in January of the same year,
and engraved by W. H. Hooper. Mr. Morris had four of the vellum copies
bound in green vellum, three of which he gave to friends. Only two
copies on vellum were sold, at twelve and fifteen guineas. This was
the only book with wash leather ties. All the other vellum bound books
have silk ties, except _Shelley's Poems_ and _Hand and Soul_, which
have no ties.

2. _Poems by the Way._ Written by WILLIAM MORRIS. Small 4to. Golden type. In black and red. Border 1. 300 paper copies at two guineas, thirteen on vellum at about twelve guineas. Dated September 24, issued October 20, 1891. Sold by Reeves & Turner. Bound in stiff vellum.

This was the first book printed at the Kelmscott Press in two colours,
and the first book in which the smaller printer's mark appeared. After
_The Glittering Plain_ was finished, at the beginning of April, no
printing was done until May 11th. In the meanwhile the compositors
were busy setting up the early sheets of _The Golden Legend_. The
printing of _Poems by the Way_, which its author first thought of
calling _Flores Atramenti_, was not begun until July. The poems in it
were written at various times. In the manuscript, _Hafburg and Signy_
is dated February 4, 1870; _Hildebrand and Hillilel_, March 1, 1871;
and _Love's Reward_, Kelmscott, April 21, 1871. _Meeting in Winter_ is
a song from _The Story of Orpheus_ an unpublished poem intended for
the _Earthly Paradise_. The last poem in the book, _Goldilocks and
Goldilooks_, was written on May 20, 1891, for the purpose of adding to
the bulk of the volume, which was then being prepared. A few of the
vellum covers were stained at Merton red, yellow, indigo, and dark
green, but the experiment was not successful.[8]

3. _The Love-Lyrics and Songs of Proteus, by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, with the Love Sonnets of Proteus, by the same author, now reprinted in their full text with many sonnets omitted from the earlier editions._ London, MDCCCXCII. Small 4to. Golden type. In black and red. Border 1. 300 paper copies at two guineas, none on vellum. Dated January 26, issued February 27, 1892. Sold by Reeves & Turner. Bound in stiff vellum.

This is the only book in which the initials are printed in red. This
was done by the author's wish.

4. _The Nature of Gothic, a Chapter of the Stones of Venice._ By JOHN RUSKIN. With a preface by William Morris. Small 4to. Golden type. Border 1. Diagrams in text. 500 paper copies at thirty shillings, none on vellum. Dated in preface, February 15, issued March 22, 1892. Published by George Allen. Bound in stiff vellum.

This chapter of the Stones of Venice, which Ruskin always considered
the most important in the book, was first printed separately, in 1854,
as a sixpenny pamphlet. Mr. Morris paid more than one tribute to it in
_Hopes and Fears for Art_. Of him Ruskin said, in 1887, "Morris is
beaten gold."

5. _The Defence of Guenevere, and Other Poems._ By WILLIAM MORRIS. Small 4to. Golden type. In black and red. Borders 2 and 1. 300 paper copies at two guineas, 10 on vellum at about twelve guineas. Dated April 2, issued May 19, 1892. Sold by Reeves & Turner. Bound in limp vellum.

This book was set up from a copy of the edition published by Reeves &
Turner in 1880, the only alteration, except a few corrections, being
in the eleventh line of _Summer Dawn_.[9] It is divided into three
parts, the poems suggested by Malory's _Morte d'Arthur_, the poems
inspired by Froissart's _Chronicles_, and poems on various subjects.
The two first sections have borders, and the last has a half border.
The first sheet was printed on February 17, 1892. It was the first
book bound in limp vellum, and the only one of which the title was
inscribed by hand on the back.

6. _A Dream of John Ball and a King's Lesson._ By WILLIAM MORRIS. Small 4to. Golden type. In black and red. Borders 3a, 4, and 2. With a woodcut designed by Sir E. Burne-Jones. 300 paper copies at thirty shillings, 11 on vellum at ten guineas. Dated May 13, issued September 24, 1892. Sold by Reeves & Turner. Bound in limp vellum.

This was set up with a few alterations from a copy of Reeves &
Turner's third edition, and the printing was begun on April 4, 1892.
The frontispiece was redrawn from that to the first edition, and
engraved on wood by W. H. Hooper, who engraved all Sir E.
Burne-Jones's designs for the Kelmscott Press, except those for _The
Wood Beyond the World_ and _The Life and Death of Jason_. The
inscription below the figures,[10] and the narrow border, were
designed by Mr. Morris and engraved with the picture on one block,
which was afterwards used on a leaflet printed for the Ancoats
Brotherhood in February, 1894.

7. _The Golden Legend._ By JACOBUS DE VORAGINE. Translated by William Caxton. Edited by F. S. Ellis. 3 vols. Large 4to. Golden type. Borders 5a, 5, 6a and 7. Woodcut title and two woodcuts designed by Sir E. Burne-Jones. 500 copies at five guineas, none on vellum. Dated September 12, issued November 3, 1892. Published by Bernard Quaritch. Bound in half Holland, with paper labels printed in the Troy type.

In July, 1890, when only a few letters of the Golden type had been
cut, Mr. Morris bought a copy of this book, printed by Wynkyn de Worde
in 1527. He soon afterwards determined to print it, and on September
11th entered into a formal agreement with Mr. Quaritch for its
publication. It was only an unforeseen difficulty about the size of
the first stock of paper that led to _The Golden Legend_ not being the
first book put in hand. It was set up from a transcript of Caxton's
first edition, lent by the Syndics of the Cambridge University Library
for the purpose. A trial page was got out in March, 1891, and fifty
pages were in type by May 11th, the day on which the first sheet was
printed. The first volume was finished, with the exception of the
illustrations and the preliminary matter, in October, 1891. The two
illustrations and the title (which was the first woodcut title
designed by Mr. Morris) were not engraved until June and August, 1892,
when the third volume was approaching completion. About half a dozen
impressions of the illustrations were pulled on vellum. A slip asking
owners of the book not to have it bound with pressure, nor to have the
edges cut instead of merely trimmed, was inserted in each copy.

8. _The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye._ By RAOUL LEFEVRE. Translated by William Caxton. Edited by H. Halliday Sparling. 2 vols. Large 4to. Troy type, with table of chapters and glossary in Chaucer type. In black and red. Borders 5a, 5, and 8. Woodcut title. 300 paper copies at nine guineas, 5 on vellum at eighty pounds. Dated October 14, issued November 24, 1892. Published by Bernard Quaritch. Bound in limp vellum.

This book, begun in February, 1892, is the first book printed in Troy
type, and the first in which Chaucer type appears. It is a reprint of
the first book printed in English. It had long been a favourite with
William Morris, who designed a great quantity of initials and
ornaments for it, and wrote the following note for Mr. Quaritch's
catalogue: "As to the matter of the book, it makes a thoroughly
amusing story, instinct with mediaeval thought and manners. For though
written at the end of the Middle Ages and dealing with classical
mythology, it has in it no token of the coming Renaissance, but is
purely mediaeval. It is the last issue of that story of Troy which
through the whole of the Middle Ages had such a hold on men's
imaginations; the story built up from a rumour of the Cyclic Poets, of
the heroic City of Troy, defended by Priam and his gallant sons, led
by Hector the Preux Chevalier, and beset by the violent and brutal
Greeks, who were looked on as the necessary machinery for bringing
about the undeniable tragedy of the fall of the City. Surely this is
well worth reading, if only as a piece of undiluted mediaevalism." 2000
copies of a 4to announcement, with specimen pages, were printed at the
Kelmscott Press in December, 1892, for distribution by the
publisher.[11]

9. _Biblia Innocentium: Being the Story of God's Chosen People before the Coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ upon Earth._ Written anew for children, by J. W. MACKAIL, Sometime Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. 8vo. Border 2. 200 on paper at a guinea, none on vellum. Dated October 22, issued December 9, 1892. Sold by Reeves & Turner. Bound in stiff vellum.

This was the last book issued in stiff vellum except _Hand and Soul_,
and the last with untrimmed edges. It was the first book printed in
8vo.

10. _The History of Reynard the Foxe._ By WILLIAM CAXTON. Reprinted from his edition of 1481. Edited by H. Halliday Sparling. Large 4to. Troy type, with Glossary in Chaucer type. In black and red. Borders 5a and 7. Woodcut title. 300 on paper at three guineas, 10 on vellum at fifteen guineas. Dated December 15, 1892, issued January 25, 1893. Published by Bernard Quaritch. Bound in limp vellum.

About this book, which was first announced as in the press in the list
dated July, 1892, William Morris wrote the following note for Mr.
Quaritch's catalogue: "This translation of Caxton's is one of the very
best of his works as to style; and being translated from a kindred
tongue is delightful as mere language. In its rude joviality, and
simple and direct delineation of character, it is a thoroughly good
representative of the famous ancient Beast Epic." The edges of this
book, and of all subsequent books, were trimmed in accordance with the
invariable practice of the early printers. Mr. Morris much preferred
the trimmed edges.

11. _The Poems of William Shakespeare_, printed after the original copies of _Venus and Adonis_, 1593. _The Rape of Lucrece_, 1594. _Sonnets_, 1609. _The Lover's Complaint._ Edited by F. S. Ellis. 8vo. Golden type. In black and red. Borders 1 and 2. 500 paper copies at twenty-five shillings, 10 on vellum at ten guineas. Dated January 17, issued February 13, 1893. Sold by Reeves & Turner. Bound in limp vellum.

A trial page of this book was set up on November 1, 1892. Though the
number was large, this has become one of the rarest books issued from
the Press.[12]

12. _News from Nowhere: or, An Epoch of Rest, Being Some Chapters from a Utopian Romance._ By WILLIAM MORRIS. 8vo. Golden type. In black and red. Borders 9a and 4, and a woodcut engraved by W. H. Hooper from a design by C. M. Gere. 300 on paper at two guineas, 10 on vellum at ten guineas. Dated November 22, 1892, issued March 24, 1893. Sold by Reeves & Turner. Bound in limp vellum.

The text of this book was printed before Shakespeare's _Poems and
Sonnets_, but it was kept back for the frontispiece, which is a
picture of the old manor-house in the village of Kelmscott by the
upper Thames, from which the Press took its name. It was set up from a
copy of one of Reeves & Turner's editions, and in reading it for the
press the author made a few slight corrections. It was the last book
except the _Savonarola_ (No. 31) in which he used the old paragraph
mark , which was discarded in favour of the leaves,
which had already been used in the two large 4to books printed in the
Troy type.

13. _The Order of Chivalry._ Translated from the French by William Caxton and reprinted from his edition of 1484. Edited by F. S. Ellis. And _L'Ordene de Chevalerie_, with translation by William Morris. Small 4to. Chaucer type, in black and red. Borders 9a and 4, and a woodcut designed by Sir Edward Burne-Jones. 225 on paper at thirty shillings, 10 on vellum at ten guineas. _The Order of Chivalry_ dated November 10, 1892, _L'Ordene de Chevalerie_ dated February 24, 1893, issued April 12, 1893. Sold by Reeves & Turner. Bound in limp vellum.

This was the last book printed in small 4to. The last section is in
8vo. It was the first book printed in the Chaucer type. The reprint
from Caxton was finished while _News from Nowhere_ was in the press,
and before Shakespeare's _Poems and Sonnets_ was begun. The French
poem and its translation were added as an afterthought, and have a
separate colophon. Some of the three-line initials which were designed
for _The Well at the World's End_ are used in the French poem, and
this is their first appearance. The translation was begun on December
3, 1892, and the border round the frontispiece was designed on
February 13, 1893.

14. _The Life of Thomas Woolsey, Cardinal Archbishop of York._ Written by GEORGE CAVENDISH. Edited by F. S. Ellis from the author's autograph MS. 8vo. Golden type. Border 1. 250 on paper at two guineas, 6 on vellum at ten guineas. Dated March 30, issued May 3, 1893. Sold by Reeves & Turner. Bound in limp vellum.

15. _The History of Godefrey of Boloyne and of the Conquest of Iherusalem._ Reprinted from Caxton's edition of 1841. Edited by H. Halliday Sparling. Large 4to. Troy type, with list of chapter headings and glossary in Chaucer type. In black and red. Borders 5a and 5, and woodcut title. 300 on paper at six guineas, 6 on vellum at twenty guineas. Dated April 27, issued May 24, 1893. Published by William Morris at the Kelmscott Press. Bound in limp vellum.

This was the fifth and last of the Caxton reprints, with many new
ornaments and initials, and a new printer's mark. It was first
announced as in the press in the list dated December, 1892. It was the
first book published and sold at the Kelmscott Press. An announcement
and order form, with two different specimen pages, was printed at the
Press, besides a special invoice. A few copies were bound in half
holland, not for sale.

16. _Utopia._ Written by SIR THOMAS MORE. A reprint of the second edition of Ralph Robinson's translation, with a foreword by William Morris.[13] Edited by F. S. Ellis. 8vo. Chaucer type, with the reprinted title in Troy type. In black and red. Borders 4 and 2. 300 on paper at thirty shillings, 8 on vellum at ten guineas. Dated August 4, issued September 8, 1893. Sold by Reeves & Turner. Bound in limp vellum.

This book was first announced as in the press in the list dated May
20, 1893.

17. _Maud, A Monodrama._ By ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON. 8vo. Golden type. In black and red. Borders 10a and 10, and woodcut title. 500 on paper at two guineas, 5 on vellum, not for sale. Dated August 11, issued September 30, 1893. Published by Macmillan & Co. Bound in limp vellum.

The borders were specially designed for this book. They were both used
again in the Keats, and one of them appears in _The Saundering Flood_.
It is the first of the 8vo books with a woodcut title.

18. _Gothic Architecture: A Lecture for the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society._ By WILLIAM MORRIS. 16mo. Golden type. In black and red. 1500 on paper at two shillings and sixpence, 45 on vellum at ten and fifteen shillings. Bound in half holland.

This lecture was set up at Hammersmith and printed at the New Gallery
during the Arts and Crafts Exhibition in October and November, 1893.
The first copies were ready on October 21st and the book was twice
reprinted before the Exhibition closed. It was the first book printed
in 16mo. The four-line initials used in it appear here for the first
time. The vellum copies were sold during the Exhibition at ten
shillings, and the price was subsequently raised to fifteen
shillings.[14]

19. _Sidonia the Sorceress._ By WILLIAM MEINHOLD. Translated by Francesca Speranza, Lady Wilde. Large 4to. Golden type. In black and red. Border 8. 300 paper copies at four guineas, 10 on vellum at twenty guineas. Dated September 15, issued November 1, 1893. Published by William Morris. Bound in limp vellum.

Before the publication of this book a large 4to announcement and order
form was issued, with a specimen page and an interesting description
of the book and its author, written and signed by William Morris. Some
copies were bound in half holland not for sale.

20. _Ballads and Narrative Poems by Dante Gabriel Rossetti._ 8vo. Golden type. In black and red. Borders 4a and 4, and woodcut title. 310 on paper at two guineas, 6 on vellum at ten guineas. Dated October 14, issued in November, 1893. Published by Ellis & Elvey. Bound in limp vellum.

This book was announced as in preparation in the list of August 1,
1893.

21. _The Tale of King Florus and the Fair Jehane._ Translated by William Morris from the French of the 13th century. 16mo. Chaucer type. In black and red. Borders 11a and 11, and woodcut title. 350 on paper at seven shillings and sixpence, 15 on vellum at thirty shillings. Dated December 16, issued December 28, 1893. Published by William Morris. Bound in half holland.

This story, like the three other translations with which it is
uniform, was taken from a little volume called _Nouvelles Francoises
en prose du XIIIe siecle_, Paris, Jannet, 1856. They were first
announced as in preparation under the heading _French Tales_ in the
list dated May 20, 1893. Eighty-five copies of _King Florus_ were
bought by J. & M. L. Tregaskis, who had them bound in all parts of the
world. These are now in the Rylands Library at Manchester.

22. _The Story of the Glittering Plain. Which has been also called The Land of Living Men or The Acre of the Undying._ Written by WILLIAM MORRIS. Large 4to. Troy type, with list of chapters in Chaucer type. In black and red. Borders 12a and 12, 23 designs by Walter Crane, engraved by A. Leverett, and a woodcut title. 250 on paper at five guineas, 7 on vellum at twenty pounds. Dated January 13, issued February 17, 1894. Published by William Morris. Bound in limp vellum. Neither the borders in this book nor six out of the seven frames round the illustrations appear in any other book. The seventh is used round the second picture in _Love is Enough_. A few copies were bound in half holland.

23. _Of the Friendship of Amis and Amile._ _Done out of the ancient French by_ WILLIAM MORRIS. 16mo. Chaucer type. In black and red. Borders 11a and 11, and woodcut title. 500 on paper at seven shillings and sixpence, 15 on vellum at thirty shillings. Dated March 13th, issued April 4, 1894. Published by William Morris. Bound in half holland.[15]

A poem entitled _Amys and Amillion_, founded on this story, was
originally to have appeared in the second volume of the _Earthly
Paradise_, but, like some other poems announced at the same time, it
was not included in the book.

20a. _Sonnets and Lyrical Poems by Dante Gabriel Rossetti._ 8vo. Golden type. In black and red. Borders 1a and 1, and woodcut title. 310 on paper at two guineas, 6 on vellum at ten guineas. Dated February 20, issued April 21, 1894. Published by Ellis & Elvey. Bound in limp vellum.

This book is uniform with No. 20, to which it forms a sequel. Both
volumes were read for the press by Mr. W. M. Rossetti.

24. _The Poems of John Keats._ Edited by F. S. Ellis. 8vo. Golden type. In black and red. Borders 10a and 10, and woodcut title. 300 on paper at thirty shillings, 7 on vellum at nine guineas. Dated March 7, issued May 8, 1894. Published by William Morris. Bound in limp vellum.

This is now (January, 1898) the most sought after of all the smaller
Kelmscott Press books. It was announced as in preparation in the lists
of May 27 and August 1, 1893, and as in the press in that of March 31,
1894, when the woodcut title still remained to be printed.[16]

25. _Atalanta in Calydon: A Tragedy._ By ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE. Large 4to. Troy type, with argument and _dramatis personae_ in Chaucer type; the dedication and quotation from Euripides in Greek type designed by Selwyn Image. In black and red. Borders 5a and 5, and woodcut title. 250 on paper at two guineas, 8 on vellum at twelve guineas. Dated May 4, issued July 24, 1894. Published by William Morris. Bound in limp vellum.

In the vellum copies of this book the colophon is not on the
eighty-second page as in the paper copies, but on the following page.

26. _The Tale of the Emperor Coustans and of Over Sea._ Done out of ancient French by WILLIAM MORRIS. 16mo. Chaucer type. In black and red. Borders 11a and 11, both twice, and two woodcut titles. 525 on paper at seven shillings and sixpence, 20 on vellum at two guineas. Dated August 30, issued September 26, 1894. Published by William Morris. Bound in half holland.

The first of these stories, which was the source of _The Man Born to
be King_ in _The Earthly Paradise_, was announced as in preparation in
the list of March 31, 1894.

27. _The Wood Beyond the World._ By WILLIAM MORRIS. 8vo. Chaucer type. In black and red. Borders 13a and 13, and a frontispiece designed by Sir E. Burne-Jones, and engraved on wood by W. Spielmeyer. 350 on paper at two guineas, 8 on vellum at ten guineas. Dated May 30, issued October 16, 1894. Published by William Morris. Bound in limp vellum.

The borders in this book, as well as the ten half borders, are here
used for the first time. It was first announced as in the press in the
list of March 31, 1894. Another edition was published by Lawrence &
Bullen in 1895.

28. _The Book of Wisdom and Lies. A Book of Traditional Stories from Georgia and Asia._ Translated by Oliver Wardrop from the original of Sulkhan-Saba Orbeliani. 8vo. Golden type. In black and red. Borders 4a and 4, and woodcut title. 250 on paper at two guineas, none on vellum. Finished September 20, issued October 29, 1894. Published by Bernard Quaritch. Bound in limp vellum.

The arms of Georgia, consisting of the Holy Coat, appear in the
woodcut title of this book.[17]

29. _The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley._ Volume 1. Edited by F. S. Ellis. 8vo. Golden type. Borders 1a and 1, and woodcut title. 250 on paper at twenty-five shillings, 6 on vellum at eight guineas. Not dated, issued November 29, 1894. Published by William Morris. Bound in limp vellum without ties.

Red ink is not used in this volume, though it is used in the second
volume, and more sparingly in the third. Some of the half borders
designed for _The Wood Beyond the World_ reappear before the longer
poems. The Shelley was first announced as in the press in the list of
March 31, 1894.[18]

30. _Psalmi Penitentiales. An English rhymed version of the Seven Penitential Psalms._ Edited by F. S. Ellis. 8vo. Chaucer type. In black and red. 300 on paper at seven shillings and sixpence, 12 on vellum at three guineas. Dated November 15, issued December 10, 1894. Published by William Morris. Bound in half holland.

These verses were taken from a manuscript Book of Hours, written at
Gloucester in the first half of the fifteenth century, but the Rev.
Professor Skeat has pointed out that the scribe must have copied them
from an older manuscript, as they are in the Kentish dialect of about
a century earlier. The half border on p. 34 appears for the first time
in this book.

31. _Epistolade Contemptumundi di Frate Hieronymo da Ferrara Dellordinede Frati Predicatori la Quale Manda ad Elena Buonaccorsi Sua Madre._ Per CONSOLARLA DELLA MORTE DEL FRATELLO, _Suo Zio_. Edited by Charles Fairfax Murray from the original autograph letter. 8vo. Chaucer type. In black and red. Border 1. Woodcut on title designed by C. F. Murray and engraved by W. H. Hooper. 150 on paper and 6 on vellum. Dated November 30, ready December 12, 1894. Bound in half holland.

This little book was printed for Mr. C. Fairfax Murray, the owner of
the manuscript, and was not for sale in the ordinary way. The colophon
is in Italian, and the printer's mark is in red.

32. _The Tale of Beowulf._ Done out of the old English tongue by WILLIAM MORRIS and A. J. WYATT. Large 4to. Troy type, with argument, side-notes, list of persons and places, and glossary in Chaucer type. In black and red. Borders 14a and 14, and woodcut title. 300 on paper at two guineas, 8 on vellum at ten pounds. Dated January 10, issued February 2, 1895. Published by William Morris. Bound in limp vellum.

The borders in this book were only used once again, in the Jason. A
note to the reader printed on a slip in the Golden type was inserted
in each copy. _Beowulf_ was first announced as in preparation in the
list of May 20, 1893. The verse translation was begun by Mr. Morris,
with the aid of Mr. Wyatt's careful paraphrase of the text, on
February 21, 1893, and finished on April 10, 1894, but the argument
was not written by Mr. Morris until December 10, 1894.

33. _Syr Perecyvelle of Gales._ Overseen by F. S. Ellis, after the edition edited by J. O. Halliwell from the Thornton MS. in the Library of Lincoln Cathedral. 8vo. Chaucer type. In black and red. Borders 13a and 13, and a woodcut designed by Sir E. Burne-Jones. 350 on paper at fifteen shillings, 8 on vellum four guineas. Dated February 16, issued May 2, 1895. Published by William Morris. Bound in limp vellum.

This is the first of the series to which _Sire Degrevaunt and Syr
Isumbrace_ belong. They were all reprinted from the Camden Society's
volume of 1844, which was a favourite with Mr. Morris from his Oxford
days. _Syr Perecyvelle_ was first announced in the list of December 1,
1894. The shoulder-notes were added by Mr. Morris.

34. _The Life and Death of Jason_, A Poem by WILLIAM MORRIS. Large 4to. Troy type, with a few words in Chaucer type. In black and red. Borders 14a and 14, and two woodcuts designed by Sir E. Burne-Jones and engraved on wood by W. Spielmeyer. 200 on paper at five guineas, 6 on vellum at twenty guineas. Dated May 25, issued July 5, 1895. Published by William Morris. Bound in limp vellum.

This book, announced as in the press in the list of April 21, 1894,
proceeded slowly, as several other books, notably the Chaucer, were
being printed at the same time. The text, which had been corrected for
the second edition of 1868, and for the edition of 1882, was again
revised by the author. The line fillings on the last page were cut on
metal for the book, and cast like type.

29a. _The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley._ Volume 11. Edited by F. S. Ellis. 8vo. Golden type. In black and red. 250 on paper at twenty-five shillings, 6 on vellum at eight guineas. Not dated, issued March 25, 1895. Published by William Morris, Bound in limp vellum without ties.

35. _Child Christopher and Goldilind the Fair._ By WILLIAM MORRIS. 2 vols. 16mo. Chaucer type. In black and red. Borders 15a and 15, and woodcut title. 600 on paper at fifteen shillings, 12 on vellum at four guineas. Dated July 25, issued September 25, 1895. Published by William Morris. Bound in half holland, with labels printed in the Golden type.

The borders designed for this book were only used once again, in _Hand
and Soul_. The plot of the story was suggested by that of Havelok the
Dane, printed by the Early English Text Society.

29b. _The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley._ Volume III. Edited by F. S. Ellis. 8vo. Golden type. In black and red. 250 on paper at twenty-five shillings, 6 on vellum at eight guineas. Dated August 21, issued October 28, 1895. Published by William Morris. Bound in limp vellum without ties.

36. _Hand and Soul._ By DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. Reprinted from _The Germ_, for Messrs. Way & Williams, of Chicago. 16mo. Golden type. In black and red. Borders 15a and 15, and woodcut title. 300 paper copies and 11 vellum copies for America. 225 paper copies for sale in England at ten shillings, and 10 on vellum at thirty shillings. Dated October 24, issued December 12, 1895. Bound in stiff vellum, without ties.

This was the only 16mo book bound in vellum. The English and American
copies have a slightly different colophon. The shoulder-notes were
added by Mr. Morris.

37. _Poems Chosen out of the Works of Robert Herrick._ Edited by F. S. Ellis. 8vo. Golden type. In black and red. Borders 4a and 4, and woodcut title. 250 on paper at thirty shillings, 8 on vellum at eight guineas. Dated November 21, 1895, issued February 6, 1896. Published by William Morris. Bound in limp vellum.

This book was first announced as in preparation in the list of
December 1, 1894, and as in the press in that of July 1, 1895.

38. _Poems Chosen out of the Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge._ Edited by F. S. Ellis. 8vo. Golden type. In black and red. Borders 13a and 13. 300 on paper at a guinea, 8 on vellum at five guineas. Dated February 5, issued April 12, 1896. Published by William Morris. Bound in limp vellum.[19]

This book contains thirteen poems. It was first announced as in
preparation in the list of December 1, 1894, and as in the press in
that of November 26, 1895. It is the last of the series to which
Tennyson's _Maud_, and the poems of Rossetti, Keats, Shelley, and
Herrick belong.

39. _The Well at the World's End._ By WILLIAM MORRIS. Large 4to. Double columns. Chaucer type. In black and red. Borders 16a, 16, 17a, 17, 18a, 18, 19a, 19, and four woodcuts designed by Sir E. Burne-Jones. 350 on paper at five guineas, 8 on vellum at twenty guineas. Dated March 2, issued June 4, 1896. Sold by William Morris. Bound in limp vellum.

This book, delayed for various reasons, was longer on hand than any
other. It appears in no less than twelve lists, from that of December,
1892, to that of November 26, 1895, as "in the press." Trial pages,
including one in a single column, were ready as early as September,
1892, and the printing began on December 16th, of that year. The
edition of _The Well at the World's End_, published by Longmans, was
then being printed from the author's manuscript at the Chiswick Press,
and the Kelmscott Press edition was set up from the sheets of that
edition, which, though not issued until October, 1896, was finished in
1894. The eight borders and the six different ornaments between the
columns appear here for the first time, but are used again in _The
Water of the Wondrous Isles_, with the exception of two borders.

40. _The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer._ Edited by F. S. Ellis. Folio. Chaucer type, with headings to the longer poems in Troy type. In black and red. Borders 20a to 26, woodcut title, and eighty-seven woodcut illustrations designed by Sir E. Burne-Jones. 425 on paper at twenty pounds, 13 on vellum at 120 guineas. Dated May 8, issued June 26, 1896. Published by William Morris. Bound in half holland.

The history of this book, which is by far the most important
achievement of the Kelmscott Press, is as follows: