“If a chap can’t compose an epic poem while he’s weaving a tapestry, he had better shut up, he’ll never do any good at all. “ – William Morris

The idea of giving a brief account of William Morris’s life and impact is beyond daunting. If people have heard of him, they’ve likely encountered a single aspect of his apparently endless skill set. Maybe you know his name because of a beautiful wallpaper design—he was one of the most influential wallpaper and textile designers of the Arts and Crafts movement and in many ways defined the aesthetics of the Victorian era. Maybe you saw his name on a copy of “Beowulf” in school—he was a polyglot and translated works from Greek, Latin, French, Icelandic, and Old English. Maybe you’re a typography nerd like me and learned about him because of Kelmscott Press—the Gothic revival publisher where he edited, designed, typeset, and printed some of the most beautiful books of the era, starting the contemporary fine press movement. Perhaps you’re a “Lord of the Rings” fan and saw one of Morris’s stories cited as an influence for Tolkien—because Morris wrote some of the first stories that are recognizable as what we today call fantasy. Or maybe you went through an Oscar Wilde phase in high school and saw Morris’s name alongside Wilde’s on some copy of “The Soul of Man Under Socialism”—Morris was a devout socialist whose ideas inspired some of the most well-known voices on the English left. 

Text by William Morris, originally published as a serial in Commonweal from April to June 1885, in commemoration of the Paris Commune.
Cover art by Walter Crane, originally printed in Commonweal, March 1888. 
This edition is designed by Casandra Johns and printed by the amazing folks at Eberhardt Press.

A5 saddle-stitched zine, 50 pages.