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William Morris, edited by Linda Parry; pp. 384. London: Philip Wilson Publishers in association with the Victoria & Albert Museum, 1996, L19.95 paper.
Art, Enterprise and Ethics: The Life and Works of William Morris, by Charles Harvey and Jon Press; pp. xv + 245. London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 1996, L35.00, L16.00 paper, $45.00, $19.50 paper.
William Morris: Art and Kelmscott, edited by Linda Parry; pp. x + 144. Woodbridge, Suffolk and Rochester, NY: The Boydell Press, 1996, L16.95, $30.00 paper.
1996, the hundredth anniversary of the death of William Morris, has been an extraordinary year in Morris studies. There have been innumerable exhibitions, lectures, conferences, newspaper stories, scholarly articles. Two major publications were Fiona MacCarthy's important new biography of Morris (it appeared in 1995 in the U.S. and in 1994 in Britain) and the completion of Norman Kelvin's masterly edition of Morris's letters. A third most significant publication was the catalogue of the exhibition devoted to Morris at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.
Although this listing makes no claim to be complete, it may be useful to mention the following books, all published in 1996. The William Morris Library (Thoemmes Press) has issued a second series, newly edited, of Morris's writings: Journalism: Contributions to Commonweal 1885-90; The Glittering Plain and Child Christopher; The Hollow Land and Other Contributions to the Oxford and Cambridge Magazine; Three Northern Love Stories and Other Tales; Reform and Revolution: Three Early Socialists on the Way Ahead; and Arts and Crafts Essays by the Members of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society. Other publications of the year include David Rodgers, William Morris at Home (Ebury Press); William Morris: Icelandic Journals (Mare's Nest); Derek Baker, The Flowers of William Morris (Barn Elms); Jean Johnson and Richard Bishop, ed., The Earthly Paradise: William Morris Yesterday & Today (William Morris Society of Canada); Nicholas Salmon, The William Morris Chronology (Thoemmes); Richard and Hilary Myers, William Morris: The Tile Designs of Morris and His Fellow-Workers (Richard Dennis); Norah Gillow, William Morris: Designs and Motifs (Moyer Bell); and David Saxby, William Morris at Merton (Museum of London).
There has been a Morris explosion in general (quite a few other publications could be listed if one went back a few years-as well as...