William Morris

Selections from the Prose Works of William Morris by William Morris, edited by AHR Ball, 214 pages

In addition to being a celebrated artist, famed for his furniture, textiles, wallpaper, and printing, William Morris was also a prolific author, writing poetry and fiction, as well as works on politics, literature, and art.  Prose Selections collects examples of Morris' prose works, organized into three categories - past, present, and future.  Interestingly, the first and last are both represented by fiction.  

It is no secret that Morris was heavily inspired by medieval culture, and the selections from his novels set in the Middle Ages illustrate the depth of his love for the era but also his recognition of its flaws.  The selections of essays and speeches addressing the men and women of his own time are fundamentally sketches of methods by which the possibilities for a holistic life he glimpsed in the Middle Ages might be recaptured and modern alienation overcome.  His utopian fiction holds out the promise of what will be accomplished should his prescriptions be followed.  Unfortunately, the religious element that supplied the very unity of medieval life Morris so admired is, at best, an afterthought in Morris' present agenda and future dreams, while a century of socialist mass murder has cast a sickly shadow over his utopian fantasies.