Golden Walter, fleeing a bad marriage, sails away and comes to a land beyond the world's edge, where a Lady, a Maid and a Dwarf live in a house in a wood — and the Maid tells him at once that the Lady will destroy him. Morris designed the wallpapers still in production today, printed this at his own Kelmscott Press in 1894, and with it began modern fantasy: Tolkien and Lewis both read it early.

Compiled in one book, the essential collection of books by William Morris:CHILD CHRISTOPHER AND GOLDILIND THE FAIRA DREAM OF JOHN BALLThe Hollow LandHOPES AND FEARS FOR ARTTHE HOUSE OF THE WOLFINGSOLD FRENCH ROMANCES DONE INTO ENGLISHTHE SUNDERING FLOODTHE TABLES TURNEDTHE WATER OF THE WONDROUS ISLESThe Well at the World's EndTHE WORLD OF ROMANCE

If you were looking for the definitive Christmas anthology, consider yourself lucky, because you just found it! This book is everything you want Christmas to be — loving, warm and celebratory. Timeless and adorable, beautifully designed, "The Big Book of Christmas" is a great big stocky book — stuffed with novels, novellas, short stories, poems, carols and songs. Inside you'll find: · Novels, novellas and short stories from Charles Dickens, Louisa May Alcott, Hans Christian Andersen, O. He...

The Collected Fantasy and Speculative Fiction of William Morris brings together the visionary works of a literary master hailed as the father of modern fantasy. Influencing greats like J. R. R. Tolkien, Morris’s rich storytelling laid the foundation for the high fantasy genre, transporting readers to medieval-inspired worlds filled with epic journeys, romantic quests, and timeless themes of heroism and community.Within these pages, you’ll discover The House of the Wolfings (1889) a...

A socialist falls asleep after a meeting in Hammersmith and wakes in a Thames valley with no money, no prisons, no factories and no London — only workshops, gardens and people who find work a pleasure. Morris wrote it in answer to Bellamy's regimented utopia, which he detested; his wallpapers are still in production, and his politics are still an argument.

Ralph of Upmeads, youngest son of a small king, rides out for the Well at the World's End, whose water grants long life and a kind of grace — and the road there passes through war, slavery and a woman who has drunk from it already. Morris invented the modern fantasy quest here: Tolkien and Lewis both read it closely, and the wandering, the maps and the invented country all begin in this book.

Hallblithe's betrothed is carried off by sea-raiders, and he follows her to the Glittering Plain — a land where nobody dies, nobody ages, and nobody is permitted to leave. Morris designed the wallpapers still in production today and printed this at his own Kelmscott Press in 1891, the first book he made there; the immortality on offer is the thing the hero has to refuse.

The narrator dreams himself into Kent in 1381, the night before the Peasants' Revolt, and hears John Ball preach at the cross — then sits with him in the church afterwards and tells him what the next five hundred years will do to everything he is about to die for. Morris designed the wallpapers still in production today and was a socialist; this is the argument of his life, put as a conversation between two men who cannot help each other.

"News from Nowhere" is a prose work by William Morris, published serially in The Commonweal in 1890 and as a book later the same year.Most of the work consists of a vision of England in the year 2090 presented as a dream of William Guest, a thin disguise for Morris himself. Poverty, misery, and the ugliness of factories have vanished, along with money, the legal system, and government itself; labour, art, and nature are ennobled. Those improvements prove to have been broug...

News from Nowhere is a classic work combining utopian socialism and soft science fiction written by the artist, designer and socialist pioneer William Morris. It was first published in serial form in the Commonweal journal beginning on 11 January 1890.Up at the League, says a friend, there had been one night a brisk conversational discussion, as to what would happen on the Morrow of the Revolution, finally shading off into a vigorous statement by various friends of their views on the futur...

William Morris is the founder of modern fantasy literature and "The Well at the World's End" is his masterpiece. It is odd that his works are not more widely read or discussed in the fantasy literature community."The Well at the World's End" is thought to be one of the first examples of an entirely fictional fantasy world, and has greatly influenced later fantasy writers such as C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. The book follows the travels of Ralph, a prince of a tiny country, as he d...

"The House of Wolfings", written in 1890 by William Morris, some argue, is a demonstration of Morris' socialism as the society described, though not an utopia, is clan-based, elects leaders and makes decisions in clan tribal meetings. Notwithstanding, it tells the story of how Thiodolf and his clan - the Wolfings, men of the Mark- fight and vanquish the Roman invaders. The book is built with Morris' knowledge of the historical period and his own idealistic views, which allow him to combine...