January 12: William
Morris began the Kelmscott Press on this day in 1891, installing three printing
presses into a cottage he had rented a few doors down from Kelmscott House, his
London home. Given that Morris died five years later, and that his books are
ranked as among the most beautifully illustrated and well-made, the Kelmscott
Press is regarded as the culmination of his life's work. It was certainly the
last in a long and influential list of obsessions and accomplishments, some of
which are captured in this one-sentence profile by friend and fellow artist,
Edward Burne-Jones:
When I first knew Morris nothing would content him but being
a monk, and getting to Rome, and then he must be an architect, and apprenticed
himself to [G.E.] Street, and worked for two years, but when I came to London
and began to paint he threw it all up, and must paint too, and then he must
give it up and make poems, and then he must give it up and make window hangings
and pretty things, and when he had achieved that, he must be a poet again, and
then after two or three years of Earthly Paradise time, he must learn dyeing,
and lived in a vat, and learned weaving, and knew all about looms, and then
made more books, and learned tapestry, and then wanted to smash everything up
and begin the world anew, and now it is printing he cares for, and to make
wonderful rich-looking books....
In his furniture, textiles, wallpaper, stained glass, and
painting, Morris hoped to obey his "golden rule" to "Have
nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be
beautiful." The statement became the motto of the nineteenth-century Arts
and Crafts Movement, a cornerstone in Morris's socialist crusade, and the
realized goal of his bookmaking: "I began printing books with the hope of
producing some which would have a definite claim to beauty, while at the same
time they should be easy to read and should not dazzle the eye, or trouble the
intellect of the reader by eccentricity of form in the letters."
Daybook is contributed by Steve King, who teaches in the English Department of Memorial University in St. John's, Newfoundland. His literary daybook began as a radio series syndicated nationally in Canada. He can be found online at todayinliterature.com.
Subscribe
Email
Print
Share
Please sign in to add a comment on this article.