Happy Birthday, William Morris!
Opening spread of The Earthly Paradise by William Morris, published by the Kelmscott Press in 1896, from the University of Alberta Bruce Peel Special Collections. Photo courtesy Richard Cairney.
Born on this day in 1834, William Morris is perhaps best known as an artist and designer, and a major force behind the Arts & Crafts movement. But he was also a poet and novelist, connected to the Pre-Raphaelite movement of the mid-1800s, and also the founder of the Kelmscott Press in 1891.
As a book nerd, I first discovered Morris in Glynnis Stephenson’s Pre-Raphaelite Poetry course during my undergraduate English degree, then got my hands on books from the Kelmscott Press in the Bruce Peel Special Collections at the University of Alberta.
You can learn more about William Morris through the William Morris Society, founded in 1955 to “perpetuate the memory of one of the greatest men of the Victorian, or any, age.”
Happy Arts & Crafting!
– Winston
Cover of Golden Wings and Other Stories by William Morris, published in 1976 by Newcastle Press of Van Nuys, California, as Volume VIII of their Newcastle Forgotten Fantasy Library series.
Page from The Earthly Paradise by William Morris, published by the Kelmscott Press in 1896, from the University of Alberta Bruce Peel Special Collections. Photo courtesy Richard Cairney.