“The most beautiful of all printed books”—William Morris’s magnum opus, by Margherita della Gherardesca. The Kelmscott Chaucer is on sale at the Treasure House Fair, Royal Hospital Chelsea, from today
A few years before his death, William Morris (1834-1896) was to turn to the work that would conclude his lifelong pursuit of the ‘ideal book’. His Kelmscott Press, founded alongside Emery Walker (1851-1933) in 1891, was a continuation of the ideals Morris had forged during the Arts and Crafts movement of the late 19th-century. The Kelmscott Chaucer took him and the artist Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1898) four years to complete, and was so meticulously designed that Burne-Jones described it as “a pocket cathedral”. By the time of completion, Morris’s health had significantly deteriorated making it the final project he oversaw in entirety; Burne-Jones was to say that if he “had done nothing else it would have been enough”.
The Arts and Crafts movement itself was a reaction to late-Victorian industrialization. Figures such as John Ruskin (1819–1900) and William Morris felt that said industrialisation had contributed to a deterioration in artistic standards. They disliked the increased detachment between craftsmanship and creation. Morris’s concern over the quality of the book, led him to create the Kelmscott Press, which turned to the medieval art forms for inspiration. Morris and Walker frequently visited the Bodleian Library, studying illuminated manuscripts for inspiration. He was interested in the craftsmanship of that past era and saw it as “a period of greatness in the art of the common people”.
Needless to say, his political and social views were interwoven with the creation of his art. He consistently combined his love for Romantic literature and beauty with his utopian socialism, believing that the pursuit of high aesthetic ideals could be transformative. Idealism, for Morris, had the ability to uplift humanity and break from the status quo. Although some people saw the lavish nature of his creations as contrasting to his personal ideals, in his view he was doing all in his power to emphasise the utopian form.
The Kelmscott Chaucer became the fullest expression of these ambitions; every element was designed and carefully orchestrated, from the typefaces to the ornamental borders. The relationship between text and imagery was central to the purpose of the book. Burne-Jones, whose style was often associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, drew inspiration from his own early work to supply his eighty-seven illustrations for the volume. He deliberately avoided illustrating Chaucer’s more comic tales, believing that in doing so he might diminish the artistic unity of the book.
The use of this artistic aesthetic became another manifestation of the combination between past and present that was central to the creation of the book. Morris and Walker were using modern Victorian technology, like the camera, to harken back to an idealised version of the Middle Ages. These innovative methods, if anything, only emphasised the meticulous attention to detail used throughout the process of creation. W. B. Yeats (1865-1939) referred to the Chaucer as “the most beautiful of all printed books”, which was achieved purely through this enaction and materialisation of Morris and Walker’s vision. Some later commentators would go on to say that the Chaucer represented a landmark in printing that could place its significance alongside that of the Gutenberg Bible.
425 copies were produced by the Kelmscott Press in 1896, of which many were issued in simple publisher’s boards. A much smaller number received more elaborate bindings, as is clear with a volume bound by Birdsall on display at Peter Harrington during Treasure House. One of only two known copies bound in this way, this particular Kelmscott Chaucer extends the intricate design of the contents onto the exterior of the book itself.
Thus, it becomes, as was always intended, not simply a vessel for literature, but a total work of art. Few books better demonstrate how the printed page can become an artistic achievement in its own right.
Margherita della Gherardesca is a bookseller at Peter Harrington
