The Collected Letters of William Morris, Volume III

These volumes bring to a close the only comprehensive edition of the surviving correspondence of William Morris (1834-1896), a protean figure who exerted a major influence as poet, craftsman, master printer, and designer. Volumes III and IV, taken together, give in detail the comments and observations that articulate his problematic political and artistic stands and equally problematic position within the aesthetic movement as it developed in the 1890s. Most eloquently voiced also are the complexities of his troubled marriage and his devotion to his epileptic daughter, Jenny, and his other daughter, May. But dominating all these themes, organizing and structuring them, are the Kelmscott Press and the building of Morris's important library of medieval manuscripts and early printed books. The letters record the way in which the Press becomes not only the center of Morris's aesthetic ambitions and achievements but also the site for his closest human relations and for much of his connecting with the makers of early modernism.

The letters in Volumes III and IV are thoroughly annotated, and through texts and notes provide a new assessment of Morris's career. Included also, as appendices to Volume IV, are two important documents: the first, never before published, is F. S. Ellis's Valuation List of Morris's library, made after Morris's death, and the second, never before reprinted, is the text of what was to be Morris's final essay on socialism, published in April 1896.

Originally published in 1995.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

William Morris (24 March 1834 - 3 October 1896) was an English textile designer, artist, writer, and libertarian socialist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and English Arts and Crafts Movement. He founded a design firm in partnership with the artist Edward Burne-Jones, and the poet and artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti which profoundly influenced the decoration of churches and houses into the early 20th century. As an author, illustrator and medievalist, he helped to establish the modern fantasy genre, and was a direct influence on postwar authors such as J. R. R. Tolkien. He was also a major contributor to reviving traditional textile arts and methods of production, and one of the founders of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, now a statutory element in the preservation of historic buildings in the UK. Morris wrote and published poetry, fiction, and translations of ancient and medieval texts throughout his life. [Wikipedia]