#kelmscott press

[heaveninawildflower]

Initial D, a design for a woodcut by William Morris (1834-1896) for

use at the Kelmscott Press.

Pen and black ink, touched with white.

© The Trustees of the British Museum.

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.

[ouroqoros]

William Morris, a British poet, designer, and thinker, founded the Kelmscott Press in 1891, a printing press that became a landmark of the Arts and Crafts movement. In response to mechanization and the subpar quality of many industrially produced books, Morris aimed to restore the craftsmanship of books from the incunabula period by reviving medieval printing techniques. He championed the book as a complete work of art by creating works with his own typefaces, illustrations by artists like Edward Burne-Jones, and careful attention to layout and binding. The edition of The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer was his most famous creation.

[thebeautifulbook]

POEMS by Dante Gabriel Rossetti [Kelmscott Press, 1891] Cover design by T.J. Cobden-Sanderson, founder of Doves Press.

source2

[arachnidflame]

Kelmscott Chaucer Illustration

[mysterious-secret-garden]

The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer. William Morris, Kelmscott Press. Illustrations by Sir Edward Burne-Jones.

[medievalistsnet]

This version of William Caxton's translation of Reynard the Fox was published in 1892 by William Morris. His books at Kelmscott Press were made to be reminiscent of medieval manuscripts. You can see it at the British Library

[the-earthly-paradise]

The Kelmscott edition of Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales set a new benchmark for book design at the end of the 19th century. It was also the last great project of Morris’s life, bringing together two of his passions. First, his love of medieval literature, which inspired the subjects and style of much of his own writing. Second, his socialist philosophy, which looked back to a time before mechanisation and division of labour had destroyed, as he saw it, the personal fulfilment and social function of meaningful work. The book was exceptional in its ambitious number of illustrations and rich decorative borders. 'If we live to finish it,' Burne-Jones wrote, 'it will be like a pocket cathedral – so full of design and I think Morris the greatest master of ornament in the world.' | Source

[graowk]

The Story of the Ynglings - translated from Icelandic & designed by William Morris 1872?