tz 
 
 MsSfl 
 
 UC-NRLF 
 
 B 3 T73 Sm 
 
The Influence of 
 
 William Morris 
 
 and 
 
 The Kelmscott Press 
 
 I As shown by an Exhibition of Books from the 
 
 Later English Presses, at The John Carter 
 
 Brown Library in December, 1911 
 
 by 
 
 MARGARET BINGHAM STILLWELL 
 
 t, ,t •' » e 
 
 
 PROVIDENCE 
 
 RHODE ISLAND 
 
 1912 
 
A,' 7 
 
 
 ^•^ 
 
 Reprinted, with a few changes, from 
 
 the Brown Alumni Monthly 
 
 for March, 1912 
 
 c c c c <; < 
 
 Press of E. A. Johnson & Co. 
 Providence. R. I. 
 
The Kelmscott Press and 
 its Inspiration 
 
 URING the winter of 191 1, as 
 one of the extension courses at 
 Brown University, Mr. H. L. 
 Koopman of the John Hay 
 Library conducted a class in "Biblio- 
 graphy." Hieroglyphic languages; early 
 alphabets; the manuscripts of Classical 
 and Mediaeval times; the Invention of 
 Printing; the various stages through 
 which the printer's art has passed; and 
 the so-called "Revival of Printing" of 
 to-day, have each been touched upon in 
 a series of lectures making for a brief 
 survey of the history of book-making. 
 
 In connection with the lectures such 
 books illustrating these subjects as are 
 in the John Hay Library were put on 
 exhibition in the Harris Room, where 
 the class met each week. Early in 
 December Mr. William_ E. Foster of the 
 Providence Public Library arranged in 
 the exhibition cases of that library books 
 from the St. Bride Collection of Print- 
 
 M131218 
 
ing which dealt with the topic then 
 under discussion. Several works pub- 
 lished in connection with the Gutenberg 
 Festival in I9(X) were shown. The ma- 
 jority of the books displayed, however, 
 illustrated the controversy over the in- 
 ventor of printing — Gutenberg of Mainz 
 versus Coster of Haarlem — which, re- 
 vived by Germany's Gutenberg Celebra- 
 tion in 1840, has raged intermittently 
 during the last forty years or more, a 
 controversy which Mr. William Blades, 
 in his summary of the dispute, printed 
 at London in 1887, "On the Present 
 Aspect of the Question — Who Was the 
 Inventor of Printing," aptly terms 
 "acute warfare." 
 
 On December 19 the class visited 
 the Annmary Brown Memorial, which 
 is located not far from the University 
 campus. In this building, which was 
 erected in 1907 by General Rush C. 
 Hawkins of New York as a memorial 
 to his wife, there is a notable collection 
 of books exemplifying the beginning of 
 printing in the various countries of 
 Europe. 
 
 General Hawkins* first fifteenth cen- 
 tury book was acquired in 1855. His 
 
efforts to find out something about the 
 history of this book and its printer re- 
 sulted in a continually growing interest 
 in early printing. This took the form 
 of a resolve "to obtain, if possible, a 
 copy of the first book issued from each 
 of the first presses, and failing in that, 
 to obtain specimens from them, even 
 though not of the first issue." The col- 
 lection now contains specimens of the 
 work of the first printers in every im- 
 portant European city, and in many 
 of the lesser towns as well. These 
 books are on permanent exhibition 
 and the building, which also contains 
 a collection of paintings by early 
 and later masters, is open to the 
 public each week on Tuesday, Wednes- 
 day, Thursday, and Friday. Strangers 
 visiting the city can usually arrange 
 to visit the building on other days 
 by making application in advance. Mr. 
 Pollard of the British Museum, in 
 his introduction to the Catalogue of the 
 books in the Annmary Brown Memorial, 
 says: "This (General Hawkins' main 
 collection) consists of some four hun- 
 dred and fifty incunabula, all shown 
 open, so that the nature and quality of 
 
the printing can be fully seen. Thus dis- 
 played they offer to the visitor as he 
 walks around the four walls of a single 
 room a better idea of the spread of 
 printing throughout Europe between 
 the years 1460 and 1500 than, to the best 
 of my knowledge, can be obtained with 
 equal ease in any other museum or ex- 
 hibition in the world." 
 
 As a supplement to the early printed 
 books studied by Mr. Koopman's class 
 at the Annmary Brown Memorial, and 
 the books from the St. Bride Collection 
 on view at the Public Library, an ex- 
 hibition was arranged in the John 
 Carter Brown Library to cover still an- 
 other and a later period in the history 
 of printing. This exhibition consisted, 
 for the most part, of specimens of print- 
 ing from various English and American 
 presses established during the last quar- 
 ter century — the Kelmscott, the Vale, 
 the Essex House and the Doves Presses 
 representing England ; and the work of 
 D. B. Updike and Bruce Rogers, Amer- 
 ica, As none of these books come within 
 the special field of the John Carter Brown 
 Library, the exhibition was largely a 
 loan. A few of the books belonged to 
 
the late John Nicholas Brown and are 
 now a part of the library; others were 
 loaned by Mr. Winship, the librarian. 
 Two books from the Kelmscott Press 
 and specimen pages of the Kelmscott 
 "Chaucer" formed the centre of interest 
 in the exhibition. The first of these, 
 "The Life of Thomas Wolsey, Cardinal 
 Archbishop of York, written by George 
 Cavendish" and printed by William 
 Morris at the Kelmscott Press in 1893, 
 was presented by the editor, Mr. F. S. 
 Ellis, to Mr. John Nicholas Brown; the 
 other "A Note by William Morris on his 
 Aims in Founding the Kelmscott Press" 
 issued March 4, 1898, was the last book 
 printed at the Press, after the death of 
 Mr. Morris. 
 
 Chronologically, the Kelmscott Press 
 began the period frequently spoken of 
 as that of "The Revival of Printing." 
 Whether or not this "Revival" would 
 have come about had the Kelmscott 
 Press never existed, or had William 
 Morris never lived, is an open question. 
 Be that as it may, William Morris may 
 well be called the "apostle" of his time 
 — an era of which John Ruskin was per- 
 haps the prophet. 
 
William Morris, first of all, was a 
 Mediaevalist. For him the nineteenth 
 century was non-existent or, at the most, 
 a horrible nightmare. Three centuries 
 were dropped from his mental vision. 
 Blind to its evils and discomforts, seeing 
 its unquestioned beauty in a rosy haze — 
 Morris would have us live the life of the 
 Middle Ages. Modern forms of archi- 
 tecture and of dress were an abomina- 
 tion; modern mechanical inventions, 
 the labor-saving devices, manufacturing 
 plants, were to him infernal machines. 
 Modern "so-called civilization" was all 
 wrong. We must begin afresh. And to 
 do this we must hark back to the 
 fifteenth century. 
 
 In his "News from Nowhere" Morris 
 shows us his ideal world, where work is 
 done with the hands for the love of the 
 work itself; where all workmen are art- 
 ists, and all artists, workmen; where 
 there are no factories and no chimneys; 
 where beautiful buildings are not "re- 
 stored" and money is of no value. He 
 sings of out-of-door life, of picturesque 
 towns, and kindly, but albeit most neigh- 
 borly, neighbors, and above all of joy in 
 work and of joy in life. 
 
X. 
 
 This theory of Morris's was not the 
 passing fancy of an "Idle Singer of an 
 Empty Day," but a conviction consist- 
 ently carried ^ul in his own life. He 
 alHed himself with the cause of Social- 
 ism in the hope of bringing about condi- 
 tions in which art could live. In his de- 
 signs, whether for tapestries or wall- 
 paper, stained glass or furniture, Morris 
 turned always to the Mediaeval for his 
 motive. In poetry and romance, his 
 theme was always some myth or tradi- 
 tion coming down through the ages. 
 And so in printing, he turned again to 
 the past. 
 
 As a book collector, Morris rode two 
 hobbies — the work of the early printers 
 and illuminated manuscripts. For years 
 Morris had collected books from the 
 early presses, his interest being mainly in 
 the woodcuts. With the development of 
 his scheme for starting a press of his 
 own and the subsequent founding of the 
 Kelmscott Press in January, 1891, 
 these books took on a new meaning to 
 him. From that time he sought to 
 gather specimens of beautiful printing. 
 These he studied, as he did his illumin- 
 ated manuscripts, not that he might 
 
copy, but that his work might reproduce 
 the Spirit of the Mediseval. 
 
 In his "Note on his Aims in founding 
 the Kelmscott Press," Morris said, "I 
 have always been a great admirer of the 
 caligraphy of the Middle Ages and of 
 the earlier printing which took its place. 
 As to the fifteenth century books, I had 
 noticed that they were always beautiful 
 by force of the mere typography, even 
 without the added ornament, with which 
 many of them are so lavishly supplied. 
 And it was the essence of my undertak- 
 ing to produce books which it would be 
 a pleasure to look upon as pieces of 
 printing and arrangement of type. Look- 
 ing at my adventure from this point of 
 view then, I found I had to consider 
 chiefly the following things: the paper, 
 the form of the type, the relative spac- 
 ing of the letters, the words, and the 
 lines; and, lastly, the position of the 
 printed matter on the page. It was only 
 natural that I, a decorator by profession, 
 should attempt to ornament my books 
 suitably. About this matter, I will only 
 say that I have always tried to keep in 
 mind the necessity for making my deco- 
 ration a part of the page of type." 
 
 10 
 
With characteristic abhorrence of the 
 machine-made, Morris studied the meth- 
 ods of paper-making in the Middle Ages. 
 He set up his vats and with white linen 
 rags only, untouched by chemicals, he 
 learned to make the paper on which his 
 Kelmscott books, vellum excepted, were 
 printed. With the knowledge of Mediae- 
 val script — which knowledge he held in 
 common with the early printers, but with 
 the advantage that he also had at hand 
 specimens of the type which they them- 
 selves had produced^ — Morris designed 
 three types: the ''Golden," the "Troy," 
 and the "Chaucer," in which the influ- 
 ence of the Roman face employed by 
 Jensen and the Gothic characters of 
 Schoeffer may be traced. To the Mediae- 
 val craftsman ornament was more or 
 less incidental. To Morris, the orna- 
 ment must be in harmony with the type ; 
 it must form an integral part of the 
 page; in appearance, the two pages of 
 an open book must be so related as to 
 form a unit, or — to use Morris's own 
 term — they must be "architectural." 
 Like the early printers', Morris's first 
 book attained a full-grown perfection. 
 But his masterpiece was yet to be. In 
 
 11 
 
June, 1896, only four months before he 
 died, the magnificent Kelmscott "Chau- 
 cer" was completed. 
 
 The standard which the early print- 
 ers had to attain in order to justify the 
 product of their craft was of the very 
 highest. Although unhampered by mod- 
 ern commercial conditions, the element 
 of competition was not lacking in their 
 work. The rivalry between the scribes 
 and illuminators and the early printers 
 resulted in the monumental products 
 from the early presses. When the print- 
 ed pages permanently took the place of 
 the written and the work of the scribes 
 was over, this competitive standard was 
 removed. The increasing demand for 
 printed books led to the practice of 
 economies in time and in material, with 
 the result that the art of printing, from 
 that time on, has undergone a continu- 
 ous process of degeneration. Not until 
 nearly the end of the nineteenth century 
 did the spirit of regeneration begin to 
 manifest itself. 
 
 About 1890, Mr. Charles Ricketts and 
 Mr. C. H. Shannon began issuing books 
 decorated with wood-cut drawings, thus 
 in a measure foreshadowing the revival 
 
 12 
 
of the older ideals of printing. William 
 Morris, with keener insight, saw the im- 
 possibility of making beautiful books 
 with modern appliances and, with 
 characteristic thoroughness, struck at 
 the root of the matter in the study 
 of paper, type, ink and "set-up." 
 His example was not without its 
 effect. In 1896, the first book in the 
 Vale Type designed by Mr. Ricketts 
 was printed. Like Morris, Mr. Ricketts 
 took for his model the work of the early 
 Venetian printers, but with the funda- 
 mental difference of conception that, 
 whereas Morris, like the early printers 
 themselves, approached printing through 
 the study of the manuscript, Mr. Rick- 
 etts "abandoned the old tradition and 
 conceived his forms as cut in metal." 
 By 1904, the year in which the Vale 
 Press was brought to a close, Mr. Rick- 
 etts had designed three types, "The 
 Vale," "The Avon" and "The King's." 
 In his " Bibliography of the Books is- 
 sued by Hacon & Ricketts," the last book 
 from their press, Mr. Ricketts writes: 
 "The novelty of a book made during 
 the recent revival lies in the fact that 
 it shows design in each portion of it, 
 
 13 
 
from type to paper, and from 'build' 
 to decoration. Therein lies the differ- 
 ence between a book so understood and 
 any other modern book printed before 
 1891 ; therein lies their affinity with the 
 grand volumes of the Italian and Ger- 
 man presses. A Kelmscott book, and, 
 if I may say so, a Vale book, is a living 
 and corporate whole, the quality of 
 beauty therein is all-pervading; it is not 
 decorated as a modern house is deco- 
 rated by the upholsterer and the picture 
 dealer; it is conceived harmoniously and 
 made beautifully like any other genuine 
 work of art. Unity, harmony, such are 
 the essentials of fine book building." 
 
 The Guild of Handicraft at Hammer- 
 smith, London, fearing that any attempt 
 to establish another press would seem 
 almost "an impertinence," did not take 
 up the craft of printing while the Kelms- 
 cott Press was in existence. With 
 Morris's death, the situation changed. 
 Mr. C. R. Ashbee of Essex House, the 
 headquarters of the Guild, immediately 
 opened negotiations with the trustees of 
 Morris's estate and succeeded in pur- 
 chasing all the plant with the exception 
 of the type and blocks — these being de- 
 
 14 
 
posited by the trustees in the British 
 Museum. He also was fortunate in se- 
 curing the services of various men who 
 had worked with Morris at the Kelms- 
 cott Press and who brought with them 
 to the newly established Essex House 
 Press some of the tradition and ideals 
 which Morris had tried to instil into 
 them. A little later, Mr. T. J. Cob- 
 den-Sanderson, sometime binder of 
 Kelmscott books, associated with one 
 of Morris's most intimate friends, Mr. 
 Emery Walker, in 1900 founded the 
 Doves Press "to attack the problem of 
 pure Typography, as presented by ordi- 
 nary books in the various forms of 
 prose, verse and dialogue, and keeping 
 always in view the principle laid down 
 in the Book Beautiful, that *The whole 
 duty of Typography is to communicate 
 to the imagination, without loss by the 
 way, the thought or image intended to 
 be conveyed by the author.' " 
 
 In America, Morris has had a host of 
 followers. Two, Daniel Berkeley Up- 
 dike of the Merrymount Press and 
 Bruce Rogers at the Riverside, caught 
 the inspiration without losing its mean- 
 ing through striving to imitate peculiari- 
 
 15 
 
ties. Each has won a reputation which 
 is based upon work done quite as well as 
 anything produced on the other side of 
 the Atlantic. 
 
 Thus the seed sown by William 
 Morris developed — not by imitation of 
 Kelmscott books, but by an attempt on 
 the part of each of these presses to re- 
 produce the spirit of the master printers 
 of the Middle Ages. In 1894, in an ad- 
 dress on Art and Labor, Morris said, 
 "The new birth of art will be brought 
 about noiselessly, gradually and without 
 violent change." Ten years later, Mr. 
 Ricketts in summing up the regeneration 
 of the craft of printing, wrote, "It isl 
 now almost unnecessary to say that thej 
 finer conditions of book building wen 
 realized for the first time in moderi 
 printing by William Morris in th( 
 Kelmscott Press." 
 
 16 
 
CO 
 
 CN 
 CN 
 
 
 \RY