William Morris: The Man and The Myth. R Page Arnot 1964
William Morris was publishing his poems and other writings only for a short forty years. Even so, they fill the two dozen volumes which his devoted daughter edited fifty years ago, followed by two supplementary volumes. The whole of his books, themselves only a small part of his artistic activities, were listed in a bibliography by H Buxton Forman in the middle 1890s, and also in Aylmer Vallance’s William Morris, the appendices to which list not only the printed works but also (up to 1898) the publications of the Kelmscott Press: and for these last there is, of course, the annotated list given by SG Cockerell in 1898 together with the note by William Morris on his aims in founding the press.
His life and times were dealt with in fairly full detail first by the official or Burne-Jones family biography entrusted to Lady Georgiana’s son-in-law, the Latin scholar and Board of Education inspector, JW Mackail. This, published in 1899, was reprinted in the series of ‘World Classics’ with an introduction by Sir Sydney Cockerell in 1950. It had been the subject of caustic comment by Bernard Shaw when it first appeared for its minimising of the socialist or communist activities of Morris. Secondly, his later life and times, especially the detail of the socialist movement, were recalled somewhat diffusely but in loving detail by May Morris in each of the twenty-four volumes, the impact of which was somewhat diminished by the war raging at the time its publication was completed.
In the last sixty years the number of books about Morris have been legion, and almost certainly amount to more pages than have been devoted in the same period to Browning or Swinburne or Tennyson or any other of his coevals in the reign of Victoria.
A full bibliography of all these books on Morris, poor stuff though some of them may be, as well as of publications in other languages was, therefore, long overdue. The gap has at last been filled by an American scholar, Professor ED Le Mire, to whose edition of ten unpublished lectures of Morris is appended a 200-page bibliography. This work, at present available only on microfilm, is shortly to be published. The Journal of the William Morris Society publishes an annual bibliography of books on Morris.
There is also a need for a chronicle of the life of Morris, showing where he was each day or week and what he was making or doing. The Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington, which owed so much to the fostering care and help bestowed on it by William Morris, would be the obvious official body to measure up to this and assign members of its skilled staff for the purpose, were it not that the niggard and philistine parsimony of successive British governments towards museums and libraries would almost certainly put it out of the question. As it is, members of the various voluntary organisations that stem from William Morris will probably have to undertake this task.
Against the persistence of the Morris-myth for several generations a counter-current set in about a third of a century ago. In parliamentary backwaters, however, the Menshevik-myth could still be found as late as January 1948, when there was a brisk interchange between Prime Minister Attlee and William Gallacher, parliamentary leader of the Communist Party. The latter had said that: ‘The Communist ideology was there in the writings, speeches and poems of the great artist and poet, William Morris, long before there was a Soviet Russia.’ The Prime Minister, who in an earlier debate had startled his fellow public-schoolboys by an erroneous declaration that there never had been a third Punic War, now confessed himself ‘amazed at the effrontery of the Hon Member for West Fife in appealing to the memory’ of Morris. ‘William Morris’, he went on to declare, ‘was the last man in the world who would ever have bowed to any Marxian authority.’
The counter-current owed much to the books that follow.
William Morris: Artist Writer Socialist by May Morris; Volume Two: Morris as a Socialist with William Morris As I Knew Him by Bernard Shaw (Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1936).
The Letters of William Morris to his Family and Friends, edited by Philip Henderson (Longmans, Green and Company, London, 1950).
William Morris: Romantic to Revolutionary by EP Thompson (Lawrence and Wishart Ltd, London, 1955).
In addition, amongst the many anthologies, some in verse and some, especially latterly, in prose, the following may be singled out.
William Morris: Selected Writings, edited with an introduction by GDH Cole (Nonesuch Press, Bloomsbury, 1934).
William Morris: Selected Writings and Designs, edited, with an introduction by Asa Briggs, with a supplement by Graeme Shankland on William Morris, Designer, illustrated by twenty-four plates (Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1962).
William Morris, Victoria and Albert Museum picture book (HMSO, London, 1958).
Catalogue of an Exhibition of Victorian and Edwardian Dramatic Arts at the Victoria and Albert Museum (HMSO, London, 1958).
Catalogue of the William Morris Gallery (Walthamstow).
Pioneers of the Modern Movement from William Morris to Walter Gropius, by N Pevsner (Faber and Faber, London, 1936); re-issued as Pioneers of Modern Design (Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1960).
William Morris: Medievalist and Revolutionary, by MR Grennan (Russell and Russel, New York, 1945).
A considerable number of societies trace their origin to William Morris or look upon him as their chief founder, such as the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (the famous ‘Antiscrape’); or the Society of Designer Craftsmen (formerly the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society); or the Art Workers’ Guild. But each of these stemmed from only one aspect of his many-sided genius. The William Morris Society, now over ten years old, seeks to cover all aspects. The society was founded in 1953 at a meeting in Red House, built for Morris in 1860 by his friend Philip Webb, who is now given a high place in the long line of British architects and who for some years was treasurer of the Socialist League. The officers then chosen were Graeme Shankland as Honorary Secretary and Freeman Bass as Honorary Treasurer. The public existence of the society dates from 13 September 1955, with a letter announcing its formation signed by J Brandon Jones, Nikolaus Pevsner and Stanley Morison (who had been Chairman of the meeting two years earlier at Red House). Sir Sydney Cockerell was President until his death in 1962, when he was succeeded by Stanley Morison. Vice-Presidents have been GDH Cole and, at present, Sir Basil Blackwell. The Honorary Secretary is RCH Briggs of 260 Sandycombe Road, Kew, Surrey. Amongst the transactions of the Society in the last seven years are:
Bernard Shaw and William Morris, by R Page Arnot (1957).
The Medieval Vision of William Morris, by R Furneaux Jordan (1960).
William Morris as a Socialist, by GDH Cole (1960).
William Morris, Writer, by Jack Lindsay (1961).
A Handlist of the Published Addresses of William Morris, by RCH Briggs (1960).
William Morris and Old Norse Literature, by JN Swannell (1963).
Lastly there is the Kelmscott Fellowship founded early in 1919 by May Morris and a number of others such as Emery Walker, Sydney Cockerell, JW Mackail, JL Mahon, Robert Steele, Catterson-Smith, etc, who had known William Morris or were partisans of his work and standpoint. May Morris (1862-1938) continued as President till her death and was succeeded by Miss Dorothy Walker, daughter of Sir Emery Walker, who was a member of the Socialist League and for a time Secretary of the Hammersmith Socialist Society and a very close friend of Morris. Miss Walker continued her presidency till her own death on 20 September 1963, at the age of eighty-five. The Fellowship continues to organise lectures and visits, of which a seventieth programme was recently sent out, and issues occasional bulletins. Its secretaries are HJ Watson, 47 Rutland Gardens, Hove 3, Sussex; A Halcrow Verstage, 31 Horniman Drive, London, SE23.