of a series chosen by Mr. Morris to illustrate a catalogue of his
library, and the other six were prepared by him for an article in the
4th number of Bibliographica, part of which is reprinted as an
introduction to the book. The process blocks (with one exception) were
made by Walker & Boutall, and are of the same size as the original cuts.
50. THE STORY OF SIGURD THE VOLSUNG AND THE FALL OF THE NIBLUNGS. BY
WILLIAM MORRIS. Small folio. Chaucer type, with title and headings to
the four books in Troy type. In black and red. Borders 33a and 33, and
two illustrations designed by Sir Edward Burne-Jones. 160 on paper at
six guineas, 6 on vellum at twenty guineas. Dated January 19, issued
February 25, 1898. Published at the Kelmscott Press. Bound in limp
vellum.
The two borders used in this book were almost the last that Mr. Morris
designed. They were intended for an edition of The Hill of Venus, which
was to have been written in prose by him and illustrated by Sir E.
Burne-Jones. The foliage was suggested by the ornament in two Psalters
of the last half of the thirteenth century in the library at Kelmscott
House. The initial A at the beginning of the 3rd book was designed in
March, 1893, for the Froissart, and does not appear elsewhere.
An edition of Sigurd the Volsung, which Mr. Morris justly considered his
masterpiece, was contemplated early in the history of the Kelmscott
Press. An announcement appears in a proof of the first list, dated
April, 1892, but it was excluded from the list as issued in May. It did
not reappear until the list of November 26, 1895, in which, the Chaucer
being near its completion, Sigurd comes under the heading 'in
preparation,' as a folio in Troy type, 'with about twenty-five
illustrations by Sir E. Burne-Jones.' In the list of June 1, 1896, it is
finally announced as 'in the press,' the number of illustrations is
increased to forty, and other particulars are given. Four borders had
then been designed for it, two of which were used on pages 470 and 471
of the Chaucer. The other two have not been used, though one of them has
been engraved. Two pages only were in type, thirty-two copies of which
were struck off on Jan. 11, 1897, and given to friends, with the sixteen
pages of Froissart mentioned above.
51. THE SUNDERING FLOOD WRITTEN BY WILLIAM MORRIS. Overseen for the
press by May Morris. 8vo. Chaucer type. In black and red. Border 10, and
a map. 300 on paper at two guineas. Dated Nov. 15, 1897, issued Feb. 25,
1898. Published at the Kelmscott Press. Bound in half holland.
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 p. 6). 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 employes, 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 Beatae Mariae 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 p. 38, 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 Mediaeval 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 Schoeffer'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.
I have hitherto had a fine and generous roman type in my mind, but after
all a certain amount of variety is desirable, and when you have gotten
your roman letter as good as the best that has been, I do not think you
will find much scope for development of it; I would therefore put in a
word for some form of gothic letter for use in our improved printed
book. This may startle some of you, but you must remember that except
for a very remarkable type used very seldom by Berthelette (I have only
seen two books in this type. Bartholomew, the Englishman, and the Gower,
of 1532), English black-letter, since the days of Wynkin de Worde, has
been always the letter which was introduced from Holland about that time
(I except again, of course, the modern imitations of Caxton). Now this,
though a handsome and stately letter, is not very easy reading; it is
too much compressed, too spiky, and so to say, too prepensely gothic.
But there are many types which are of a transitional character and of
all degrees of transition, from those which do little more than take in
just a little of the crisp floweriness of the gothic, like some of the
Mentelin or quasi-Mentelin ones (which, indeed, are models of beautiful
simplicity), or say like the letter of the Ulm Ptolemy, of which it is
difficult to say whether it is gothic or roman, to the splendid Mainz
type, of which, I suppose, the finest specimen is the Schoeffer Bible
of 1462, which is almost wholly gothic. This gives us a wide field for
variety, I think, so I make the suggestion to you, and leave this part
of the subject with two remarks: first, that a good deal of the
difficulty of reading gothic books is caused by the numerous
contractions in them, which were a survival of the practice of the
scribes; and in a lesser degree by the over-abundance of tied letters,
both of which drawbacks, I take it for granted, would be absent in
modern types founded on these semi-gothic letters. And, secondly, that
in my opinion the capitals are the strong side of roman and the
lower-case of gothic letter, which is but natural, since the roman was
originally an alphabet of capitals, and the lower case a gradual
deduction from them.
We now come to the position of the page of print on the paper, which is
a most important point, and one that till quite lately has been wholly
misunderstood by modern, and seldom done wrong by ancient printers, or
indeed by producers of books of any kind. On this head I must begin by
reminding you that we only occasionally see one page of a book at a
time; the two pages making an opening are really the unit of the book,
and this was thoroughly understood by the old book producers. I think
you will seldom find a book produced before the eighteenth century, and
which has not been cut down by that enemy of books (and of the human
race), the binder, in which this rule is not adhered to: that the binder
edge (that which is bound in) must be the smallest member of the
margins, the head margin must be larger than this, the fore larger
still, and the tail largest of all. I assert that, to the eye of any man
who knows what proportion is, this looks satisfactory, and that no other
does so look. But the modern printer, as a rule, dumps down the page in
what he calls the middle of the paper, which is often not even really
the middle, as he measures his page from the head line, if he has one,
though it is not really a part of the page, but a spray of type only
faintly staining the head of the paper. Now I go so far as to say that
any book in which the page is properly put on the paper is tolerable to
look at, however poor the type may be (always so long as there is no
"ornament" which may spoil the whole thing), whereas any book in which
the page is wrongly set on the paper is intolerable to look at, however
good the type and ornaments may be. I have got on my shelves now a
Jenson's Latin Pliny, which, in spite of its beautiful type and handsome
painted ornaments, I dare scarcely look at, because the binder
(adjectives fail me here) has chopped off two-thirds of the tail margin:
such stupidities are like a man with his coat buttoned up behind, or a
lady with her bonnet on hind-side foremost.
Before I finish I should like to say a word concerning large-paper
copies. I am clean against them, though I have sinned a good deal in
that way myself, but that was in the days of ignorance, and I petition
for pardon on that ground only. If you want to publish a handsome
edition of a book, as well as a cheap one, do so, but let them be two
books, and if you (or the public) cannot afford this, spend your
ingenuity and your money in making the cheap book as sightly as you can.
Your making a large-paper copy out of the small one lands you in a
dilemma even if you re-impose the pages for the large paper, which is
not often done, I think. If the margins are right for the smaller book
they must be wrong for the larger, and you have to offer the public the
worse book at the bigger price; if they are right for the large paper
they are wrong for the small, and thus spoil it, as we have seen above
that they must do; and that seems scarcely fair to the general public
(from the point of view of artistic morality) who might have had a book
that was sightly, though not high-priced.