fiction

Those who are familiar with the art of William Morris may be surprised to find that he was also one of the first writers of fantasy literature through his publishing company Kelmscott Press. A prolific reader, theorist and social activist, it is no surprise to find these themes at play in his not inconsiderable literary corpus. Drawing on the structure and style of English and French chivalric romances such as Gawain and the Green Knight, Le Morte d’Arthur, and the Roman de Troie, Morris explores social and metaphysical problems with a startlingly singular prowess.

In The Story of the Glittering Plain he explores crime and violence, death and the afterlife, and passion. The Sundering Flood, the longest of his tales, is a unique application of the ideal of chivalric virtue to a setting of exploitation, corruption, and revolutionary upheaval. The Wood Beyond the World is a plainer, more folkloric story, but one which anticipates some of the genderbent writings of Neil Gaiman and Angela Carter. The contemporary editions published by Dover Publications are facsimiles of the original Kelmscott Press editions, and feature extraordinary illustrations and embellishments by a true master of woodblock printing

Dover Books, 2019