_BEING CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE_ OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE MAGAZINE, 1856
_By_ WILLIAM MORRIS
LONDON: _Published by_ J. THOMSON _at_ 10,
CRAVEN GARDENS, WIMBLEDON, S. W.
MCMVI
_In the tales . . . the world is one of pure romance. Mediaeval customs,
mediaeval buildings, the mediaeval Catholic religion, the general social
framework of the thirteenth or fourteenth century, are assumed
throughout, but it would be idle to attempt to place them in any known
age or country. . . Their author in later years thought, or seemed to
think, lightly of them, calling them crude (as they are) and very young
(as they are). But they are nevertheless comparable in quality to
Keats's 'Endymion' as rich in imagination, as irregularly gorgeous in
language, as full in every vein and fibre of the sweet juices and ferment
of the spring_.--J. W. MACKAIL
In his last year at Oxford, Morris established, assuming the entire
financial responsibility, the 'Oxford and Cambridge Magazine,' written
almost entirely by himself and his college friends, but also numbering
Rossetti among its contributors. Like most college ventures, its career
was short, ending with its twelfth issue in December, 1856. In this
magazine Morris first found his strength as a writer, and though his
subsequent literary achievements made him indifferent to this earlier
work, its virility and wealth of romantic imagination justify its rescue
from oblivion.
The article on Amiens, intended originally as the first of a series, is
included in this volume as an illustration of Morris's power to clothe
things actual with the glamour of Romance.