Complete Works of William Morris, page 765
This was the last romance by William Morris. He began to write it on Dec. 21, 1895, and dictated the final words on Sept. 8, 1896. The map pasted into the cover was drawn by H. Cribb for Walker & Boutall, who prepared the block. In the edition that Longmans are about to issue the bands of robbers called in the Kelmscott edition Red and Black Skinners appear correctly as Red and Black Skimmers. The name was probably suggested by that of the pirates called ‘escumours of the sea’ on page 154 of Godefrey of Boloyne.
52. LOVE IS ENOUGH, OR THE FREEING OF PHARAMOND: A MORALITY. WRITTEN BY WILLIAM MORRIS. Large 4to. Troy type, with stage directions in Chaucer type. In black, red, and blue. Borders 6a and 7, and two illustrations designed by Sir Edward Burne-Jones. 300 on paper at two guineas, 8 on vellum at ten guineas. Dated Dec. 11, 1897, issued Mar. 24, 1898. Published at the Kelmscott Press. Bound in limp vellum.
This was the second book printed in three colours at the Kelmscott Press. As explained in the colophon, the final picture was not designed for this edition of Love is Enough, but for the projected edition referred to above, on page 5.
53. A NOTE BY WILLIAM MORRIS ON HIS AIMS IN FOUNDING THE KELMSCOTT PRESS, TOGETHER WITH A SHORT DESCRIPTION OF THE PRESS BY S. C. COCKERELL, AND AN ANNOTATED LIST OF THE BOOKS PRINTED THEREAT. Octavo. Golden type, with five pages in the Troy and Chaucer types. In black and red. Borders 4a and 4, and a woodcut designed by Sir E. Burne-Jones. 525 on paper at ten shillings, 12 on vellum at two guineas. Dated March 1, issued March 24, 1898. Published at the Kelmscott Press. Bound in half holland.
The frontispiece to this book was engraved by William Morris for the projected edition of The Earthly Paradise described on page 5. This block and the blocks for the three ornaments on page 7 are not included among those mentioned on page 12 as having been sent to the British Museum.
VARIOUS LISTS, LEAFLETS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS PRINTED AT THE KELMSCOTT PRESS.
Eighteen lists of the books printed or in preparation at the Kelmscott Press were issued to booksellers and subscribers. The dates of these are May, July, and Dec., 1892; March 9, May 20, May 27, Aug. 1, and Dec. 1, 1893; March 31, April 21, July 2, Oct. 1 (a leaflet), and Dec. 1, 1894; July 1, and Nov. 26, 1895; June 1, 1896; Feb. 16, and July 28, 1897. The three lists for 1892, and some copies of that for Mar. 9, 1893, were printed on Whatman paper, the last of the stock bought for the first edition of The Roots of the Mountains (see ). Besides these, twenty-nine announcements, relating mainly to individual books, were issued; and eight leaflets, containing extracts from the lists, were printed for distribution by Messrs. Morris & Co.
The following items, as having a more permanent interest than most of these announcements, merit a full description:
1. Two forms of invitation to the annual gatherings of The Hammersmith Socialist Society on Jan. 30, 1892, and Feb. 11, 1893. Golden type.
2. A four-page leaflet for the Ancoats Brotherhood, with the frontispiece from the Kelmscott Press edition of A Dream of John Ball on the first page. March, 1894. Golden type. 2500 copies.
3. An address to Sir Lowthian Bell, Bart., from his employés, dated 30th June, 1894. 8 pages. Golden type. 250 on paper and 2 on vellum.
4. A leaflet, with fly-leaf, headed An American Memorial to Keats, together with a form of invitation to the unveiling of his bust in Hampstead Parish Church on July 16, 1894. Golden type. 750 copies.
5. A slip giving the text of a memorial tablet to Dr. Thomas Sadler, for distribution at the unveiling of it in Rosslyn Hill Chapel, Hampstead. Nov., 1894. Golden type. 450 copies.
6. Scholarship certificates for the Technical Education Board of the London County Council, printed in the oblong borders designed for the pictures in Chaucer’s Works. One of these borders was not used in the book, and this is its only appearance. The first certificate was printed in Nov., 1894, and was followed in Jan., 1896, by eleven certificates; in Jan., 1897, by six certificates; and in Feb., 1898, by eleven certificates, all differently worded. Golden type. The numbers varied from 12 to 2500 copies.
7. Programmes of the Kelmscott Press annual wayzgoose for the years 1892-5. These were printed without supervision from Mr. Morris.
8. Specimen showing the three types used at the Press for insertion in the first edition of Strange’s Alphabets. March, 1895. 2000 ordinary copies and 60 on large paper.
9. Card for Associates of the Deaconess Institution for the Diocese of Rochester. One side of this card is printed in Chaucer type; on the other there is a prayer in the Troy type enclosed in a small border which was not used elsewhere. It was designed for the illustrations of a projected edition of The House of the Wolfings. April, 1897. 250 copies.
A LIST OF THE BOOKS DESCRIBED ABOVE.
page
1
The Glittering Plain (without illustrations)
15
2
Poems by the Way
15
3
Blunt’s Love Lyrics and Songs of Proteus
16
4
Ruskin’s Nature of Gothic
16
5
The Defence of Guenevere
16
6
A Dream of John Ball
17
7
The Golden Legend
17
8
The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye
18
9
Mackail’s Biblia Innocentium
19
10
Reynard the Foxe
19
11
Shakespeare’s Poems and Sonnets
20
12
News from Nowhere
20
13
The Order of Chivalry
20
14
Cavendish’s Life of Wolsey
21
15
Godefrey of Boloyne
21
16
More’s Utopia
22
17
Tennyson’s Maud
22
18
Gothic Architecture, by William Morris
22
19
Sidonia the Sorceress
23
20
Rossetti’s Ballads and Narrative Poems
23
20a
“ Sonnets and Lyrical Poems
24
21
King Florus
23
22
The Glittering Plain (illustrated)
23
23
Amis and Amile
24
24
The Poems of Keats
24
25
Swinburne’s Atalanta in Calydon
25
26
The Emperor Coustans
25
27
The Wood beyond the World
25
28
The Book of Wisdom and Lies
25
29
Shelley’s Poems, Vol. I.
26
29a
“ “ II.
28
29b
“ “ III.
28
30
Psalmi Penitentiales
26
31
Savonarola, De contemptu Mundi
26
32
Beowulf
27
33
Syr Perecyvelle
27
34
The Life and Death of Jason
27
35
Child Christopher
28
36
Rossetti’s Hand and Soul
28
37
Herrick’s Poems
29
38
Coleridge’s Poems
29
39
The Well at the World’s End
29
40
Chaucer’s Works
30
41
The Earthly Paradise, Vol. I.
32
41a
“ “ “ II.
33
41b
“ “ “ III.
34
41c
“ “ “ IV.
34
41d
“ “ “ V.
34
41e
“ “ “ VI.
34
41f
“ “ “ VII.
35
41g
“ “ “ VIII.
35
42
Laudes Beatæ Mariæ Virginis
33
43
The Floure and the Leafe
33
44
Spenser’s Shepheardes Calender
33
45
The Water of the Wondrous Isles
35
46
Trial pages of Froissart
36
47
Sire Degrevaunt
37
48
Syr Ysambrace
37
49
Some German Woodcuts
38
50
Sigurd the Volsung
38
51
The Sundering Flood
39
52
Love is Enough
39
53
A Note by William Morris
40
LEAFLETS, &c.
Various lists and announcements relating to the Kelmscott Press
40
1.
Hammersmith Socialist Society, invitations
40
2.
Ancoats Brotherhood leaflet
41
3.
Address to Sir Lowthian Bell
41
4.
An American Memorial to Keats
41
5.
Memorial to Dr. Thomas Sadler
41
6.
L. C. C. Scholarship Certificates
41
7.
Wayzgoose Programmes
41
8.
Specimen in Strange’s Alphabets
41
9.
Card for Associates of the Deaconess Institution for the Diocese of Rochester
41
Other works announced in the lists as in preparation, but afterwards abandoned, were The Tragedies, Histories, and Comedies of William Shakespeare; Caxton’s Vitas Patrum; The Poems of Theodore Watts-Dunton; and A Catalogue of the Collection of Woodcut Books, Early Printed Books, and Manuscripts at Kelmscott House. The text of the Shakespeare was to have been prepared by Dr. Furnivall. The original intention, as first set out in the list of May 20, 1893, was to print it in three vols. folio. A trial page from Lady Macbeth, printed at this time, is in existence. The same information is repeated until the list of July 2, 1895, in which the book is announced as to be a ‘small 4to (special size),’ i. e., the size afterwards adopted for The Earthly Paradise. It was not, however, begun, nor was the volume of Mr. Watts-Dunton’s poems. Of the Vitas Patrum, which was to have been uniform with The Golden Legend, a prospectus and specimen page were issued in March, 1894, but the number of subscribers did not justify its going beyond this stage. Two trial pages of the Catalogue were set up; some of the material prepared for it has now appeared in Some German Woodcuts of the Fifteenth Century. In addition to these books, The Hill of Venus, as stated on , was in preparation. Among works that Mr. Morris had some thought of printing may also be mentioned The Bible, Gesta Romanorum, Malory’s Morte Darthur, The High History of the San Graal (translated by Dr. Sebastian Evans), Piers Ploughman, Huon of Bordeaux, Caxton’s Jason, a Latin Psalter, The Prymer or Lay Folk’s Prayer-Book, Some Mediæval English Songs and Music, The Pilgrim’s Progress, and a Book of Romantic Ballads. He was engaged on the selection of the Ballads, which he spoke of as the finest poems in our language, during his last illness.
* * *
THE IDEAL BOOK: AN ADDRESS BY WILLIAM MORRIS, DELIVERED BEFORE THE BIBLIOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON, MDCCCXCIII.
By the Ideal Book, I suppose we are to understand a book not limited by commercial exigencies of price: we can do what we like with it, according to what its nature, as a book, demands of art. But we may conclude, I think, that its matter will limit us somewhat; a work on differential calculus, a medical work, a dictionary, a collection of a statesman’s speeches, or a treatise on manures, such books, though they might be handsomely and well printed, would scarcely receive ornament with the same exuberance as a volume of lyrical poems, or a standard classic, or such like. A work on Art, I think, bears less of ornament than any other kind of book (“non bis in idem” is a good motto); again, a book that must have illustrations, more or less utilitarian, should, I think, have no actual ornament at all, because the ornament and the illustration must almost certainly fight.
Still whatever the subject matter of the book may be, and however bare it may be of decoration, it can still be a work of art, if the type be good and attention be paid to its general arrangement. All here present, I should suppose, will agree in thinking an opening of Schœffer’s 1462 Bible beautiful, even when it has neither been illuminated nor rubricated; the same may be said of Schussler, or Jenson, or, in short, of any of the good old printers; their books, without any further ornament than they derived from the design and arrangement of the letters, were definite works of art. In fact a book, printed or written, has a tendency to be a beautiful object, and that we of this age should generally produce ugly books, shows, I fear, something like malice prepense — a determination to put our eyes in our pockets wherever we can.
Well, I lay it down, first, that a book quite unornamented can look actually and positively beautiful, and not merely un-ugly, if it be, so to say, architecturally good, which, by the by, need not add much to its price, since it costs no more to pick up pretty stamps than ugly ones, and the taste and forethought that goes to the proper setting, position, and so on, will soon grow into a habit, if cultivated, and will not take up much of the master printer’s time when taken with his other necessary business.
Now, then, let us see what this architectural arrangement claims of us. First, the pages must be clear and easy to read; which they can hardly be unless, Secondly, the type is well designed; and Thirdly, whether the margins be small or big, they must be in due proportion to the page of the letter.
For clearness of reading the things necessary to be heeded are, first, that the letters should be properly put on their bodies, and, I think, especially that there should be small whites between them; it is curious, but to me certain, that the irregularity of some early type, notably the roman letter of the early printers of Rome, which is, of all roman type, the rudest, does not tend toward illegibility: what does so is the lateral compression of the letter, which necessarily involves the over thinning out of its shape. Of course I do not mean to say that the above-mentioned irregularity is other than a fault to be corrected. One thing should never be done in ideal printing, the spacing out of letters — that is, putting an extra white between them; except in such hurried and unimportant work as newspaper printing, it is inexcusable.
This leads to the second matter on this head, the lateral spacing of words (the whites between them); to make a beautiful page great attention should be paid to this, which, I fear, is not often done. No more white should be used between the words than just clearly cuts them off from one another; if the whites are bigger than this it both tends to illegibility and makes the page ugly. I remember once buying a handsome fifteenth-century Venetian book, and I could not tell at first why some of its pages were so worrying to read, and so commonplace and vulgar to look at, for there was no fault to find with the type. But presently it was accounted for by the spacing: for the said pages were spaced like a modern book, i. e., the black and white nearly equal. Next, if you want a legible book, the white should be clear and the black black. When that excellent journal, the Westminster Gazette, first came out, there was a discussion on the advantages of its green paper, in which a good deal of nonsense was talked. My friend, Mr. Jacobi, being a practical printer, set these wise men right, if they noticed his letter, as I fear they did not, by pointing out that what they had done was to lower the tone (not the moral tone) of the paper, and that, therefore, in order to make it as legible as ordinary black and white, they should make their black blacker — which of course they do not do. You may depend upon it that a gray page is very trying to the eyes.
As above said, legibility depends also much on the design of the letter: and again I take up the cudgels against compressed type, and that especially in roman letter: the full-sized lower-case letters “a,” “b,” “d,” and “c,” should be designed on something like a square to get good results: otherwise one may fairly say that there is no room for the design; furthermore, each letter should have its due characteristic drawing, the thickening out for a “b,” “e,” “g,” should not be of the same kind as that for a “d”; a “u” should not merely be an “n” turned upside down; the dot of the “i” should not be a circle drawn with compasses; but a delicately drawn diamond, and so on. To be short, the letters should be designed by an artist, and not an engineer. As to the forms of letters in England (I mean Great Britain), there has been much progress within the last forty years. The sweltering hideousness of the Bodoni letter, the most illegible type that was ever cut, with its preposterous thicks and thins, has been mostly relegated to works that do not profess anything but the baldest utilitarianism (though why even utilitarianism should use illegible types, I fail to see), and Caslon’s letter and the somewhat wiry, but in its way, elegant old-faced type cut in our own days, has largely taken its place. It is rather unlucky, however, that a somewhat low standard of excellence has been accepted for the design of modern roman type at its best, the comparatively poor and wiry letter of Plantin and the Elzevirs having served for the model, rather than the generous and logical designs of the fifteenth-century Venetian printers, at the head of whom stands Nicholas Jenson; when it is so obvious that this is the best and clearest roman type yet struck, it seems a pity that we should make our starting-point for a possible new departure at any period worse than the best. If any of you doubt the superiority of this type over that of the seventeenth century, the study of a specimen enlarged about five times will convince him, I should think. I must admit, however, that a commercial consideration comes in here, to wit, that the Jenson letters take up more room than the imitations of the seventeenth century; and that touches on another commercial difficulty, to wit, that you cannot have a book either handsome or clear to read which is printed in small characters. For my part, except where books smaller than an ordinary octavo are wanted, I would fight against anything smaller than pica; but at any rate small pica seems to me the smallest type that should be used in the body of any book. I might suggest to printers that if they want to get more in they can reduce the size of the leads, or leave them out altogether. Of course this is more desirable in some types than in others; Caslon’s letter, e. g., which has long ascenders and descenders, never needs leading, except for special purposes.
