Various Lists, Leaflets and Announcements Printed at the Kelmscott Press
Eighteen lists of the books printed or in preparation at the Kelmscott Press were issued to booksellers and subscribers. The dates of these are May, July, and Dec., 1892; March 9, May 20, May 27, Aug. 1, and Dec. 1, 1893; March 31, April 21, July 2, Oct. 1 (a leaflet), and Dec. 1, 1894; July 1, and Nov. 26, 1895; June 1, 1896; Feb. 16, and July 28, 1897. The three lists for 1892, and some copies of that for Mar. 9, 1893, were printed on Whatman paper, the last of the stock bought for the first edition of The Roots of the Mountains (see p. 6). Besides these, twenty-nine announcements, relating mainly to individual books, were issued; and eight leaflets, containing extracts from the lists, were printed for distribution by Messrs. Morris & Co.
The following items, as having a more permanent interest than most of these announcements, merit a full description:
1. Two forms of invitation to the annual gatherings of The Hammersmith Socialist Society on Jan. 30, 1892, and Feb. 11, 1893. Golden type.
2. A four-page leaflet for the Ancoats Brotherhood, with the frontispiece from the Kelmscott Press edition of A Dream of John Ball on the first page. March, 1894. Golden type. 2500 copies.
3. An address to Sir Lowthian Bell, Bart., from his employés, dated 30th June, 1894. 8 pages. Golden type. 250 on paper and 2 on vellum.
4. A leaflet, with fly-leaf, headed An American Memorial to Keats, together with a form of invitation to the unveiling of his bust in Hampstead Parish Church on July 16, 1894. Golden type. 750 copies.
5. A slip giving the text of a memorial tablet to Dr. Thomas Sadler, for distribution at the unveiling of it in Rosslyn Hill Chapel, Hampstead. Nov., 1894. Golden type. 450 copies.
6. Scholarship certificates for the Technical Education Board of the London County Council, printed in the oblong borders designed for the pictures in Chaucer’s Works. One of these borders was not used in the book, and this is its only appearance. The first certificate was printed in Nov., 1894, and was followed in Jan., 1896, by eleven certificates; in Jan., 1897, by six certificates; and in Feb., 1898, by eleven certificates, all differently worded. Golden type. The numbers varied from 12 to 2500 copies.
7. Programmes of the Kelmscott Press annual wayzgoose for the years 1892-5. These were printed without supervision from Mr. Morris.
8. Specimen showing the three types used at the Press for insertion in the first edition of Strange’s Alphabets. March, 1895. 2000 ordinary copies and 60 on large paper.
9. Card for Associates of the Deaconess Institution for the Diocese of Rochester. One side of this card is printed in Chaucer type; on the other there is a prayer in the Troy type enclosed in a small border which was not used elsewhere. It was designed for the illustrations of a projected edition of The House of the Wolfings. April, 1897. 250 copies.
| A LIST OF THE BOOKS DESCRIBED ABOVE. | page | |
| 1 | The Glittering Plain (without illustrations) | 15 |
| 2 | Poems by the Way | 15 |
| 3 | Blunt’s Love Lyrics and Songs of Proteus | 16 |
| 4 | Ruskin’s Nature of Gothic | 16 |
| 5 | The Defence of Guenevere | 16 |
| 6 | A Dream of John Ball | 17 |
| 7 | The Golden Legend | 17 |
| 8 | The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye | 18 |
| 9 | Mackail’s Biblia Innocentium | 19 |
| 10 | Reynard the Foxe | 19 |
| 11 | Shakespeare’s Poems and Sonnets | 20 |
| 12 | News from Nowhere | 20 |
| 13 | The Order of Chivalry | 20 |
| 14 | Cavendish’s Life of Wolsey | 21 |
| 15 | Godefrey of Boloyne | 21 |
| 16 | More’s Utopia | 22 |
| 17 | Tennyson’s Maud | 22 |
| 18 | Gothic Architecture, by William Morris | 22 |
| 19 | Sidonia the Sorceress | 23 |
| 20 | Rossetti’s Ballads and Narrative Poems | 23 |
| 20a | ″ Sonnets and Lyrical Poems | 24 |
| 21 | King Florus | 23 |
| 22 | The Glittering Plain (illustrated) | 23 |
| 23 | Amis and Amile | 24 |
| 24 | The Poems of Keats | 24 |
| 25 | Swinburne’s Atalanta in Calydon | 25 |
| 26 | The Emperor Coustans | 25 |
| 27 | The Wood beyond the World | 25 |
| 28 | The Book of Wisdom and Lies | 25 |
| 29 | Shelley’s Poems, Vol. I. | 26 |
| 29a | ″ ″ II. | 28 |
| 29b | ″ ″ III. | 28 |
| 30 | Psalmi Penitentiales | 26 |
| 31 | Savonarola, De contemptu Mundi | 26 |
| 32 | Beowulf | 27 |
| 33 | Syr Perecyvelle | 27 |
| 34 | The Life and Death of Jason | 27 |
| 35 | Child Christopher | 28 |
| 36 | Rossetti’s Hand and Soul | 28 |
| 37 | Herrick’s Poems | 29 |
| 38 | Coleridge’s Poems | 29 |
| 39 | The Well at the World’s End | 29 |
| 40 | Chaucer’s Works | 30 |
| 41 | The Earthly Paradise, Vol. I. | 32 |
| 41a | ″ ″ ″ II. | 33 |
| 41b | ″ ″ ″ III. | 34 |
| 41c | ″ ″ ″ IV. | 34 |
| 41d | ″ ″ ″ V. | 34 |
| 41e | ″ ″ ″ VI. | 34 |
| 41f | ″ ″ ″ VII. | 35 |
| 41g | ″ ″ ″ VIII. | 35 |
| 42 | Laudes Beatæ Mariæ Virginis | 33 |
| 43 | The Floure and the Leafe | 33 |
| 44 | Spenser’s Shepheardes Calender | 33 |
| 45 | The Water of the Wondrous Isles | 35 |
| 46 | Trial pages of Froissart | 36 |
| 47 | Sire Degrevaunt | 37 |
| 48 | Syr Ysambrace | 37 |
| 49 | Some German Woodcuts | 38 |
| 50 | Sigurd the Volsung | 38 |
| 51 | The Sundering Flood | 39 |
| 52 | Love is Enough | 39 |
| 53 | A Note by William Morris | 40 |
| LEAFLETS, &c. | ||
| Various lists and announcements relating to the Kelmscott Press | 40 | |
| 1. | Hammersmith Socialist Society, invitations | 40 |
| 2. | Ancoats Brotherhood leaflet | 41 |
| 3. | Address to Sir Lowthian Bell | 41 |
| 4. | An American Memorial to Keats | 41 |
| 5. | Memorial to Dr. Thomas Sadler | 41 |
| 6. | L. C. C. Scholarship Certificates | 41 |
| 7. | Wayzgoose Programmes | 41 |
| 8. | Specimen in Strange’s Alphabets | 41 |
| 9. | Card for Associates of the Deaconess Institution for the Diocese of Rochester | 41 |
Other works announced in the lists as in preparation, but afterwards abandoned, were The Tragedies, Histories, and Comedies of William Shakespeare; Caxton’s Vitas Patrum; The Poems of Theodore Watts-Dunton; and A Catalogue of the Collection of Woodcut Books, Early Printed Books, and Manuscripts at Kelmscott House. The text of the Shakespeare was to have been prepared by Dr. Furnivall. The original intention, as first set out in the list of May 20, 1893, was to print it in three vols. folio. A trial page from Lady Macbeth, printed at this time, is in existence. The same information is repeated until the list of July 2, 1895, in which the book is announced as to be a ‘small 4to (special size),’ i. e., the size afterwards adopted for The Earthly Paradise. It was not, however, begun, nor was the volume of Mr. Watts-Dunton’s poems. Of the Vitas Patrum, which was to have been uniform with The Golden Legend, a prospectus and specimen page were issued in March, 1894, but the number of subscribers did not justify its going beyond this stage. Two trial pages of the Catalogue were set up; some of the material prepared for it has now appeared in Some German Woodcuts of the Fifteenth Century. In addition to these books, The Hill of Venus, as stated on p. 38, was in preparation. Among works that Mr. Morris had some thought of printing may also be mentioned The Bible, Gesta Romanorum, Malory’s Morte Darthur, The High History of the San Graal (translated by Dr. Sebastian Evans), Piers Ploughman, Huon of Bordeaux, Caxton’s Jason, a Latin Psalter, The Prymer or Lay Folk’s Prayer-Book, Some Mediæval English Songs and Music, The Pilgrim’s Progress, and a Book of Romantic Ballads. He was engaged on the selection of the Ballads, which he spoke of as the finest poems in our language, during his last illness.