William Morris Papers

English author, designer, manufacturer, and artist William Morris (1834-1896) is best known for his association with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and as a central figure of the English Arts and Crafts Movement. He was influential in the emergence of socialism in England in the nineteenth century, having founded the Socialist League in 1884. Morris's more well known works include The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems (1858), The Earthly Paradise (18681870), A Dream of John Ball (1892) and News from Nowhere (1893). In 1891, Morris founded the Kelmscott Press, which produced books modeled after fifteenth-century incunabula. The press produced 53 titles during its 7-year operation. His 1896 edition of the Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, called the Kelmscott Chaucer, is often regarded a pinnacle of book design. The collection includes correspondence from Sydney Cockerell, Jane Morris, and William Morris, a manuscript of poetry by Stopford Augustus Brooke, and nine reels of microfilm of the British Library's William Morris papers