William Morris: A Life for Our Time
£28.90£38.00 (-24%)
Winner of the Wolfson History Prize, and described by A.S.Byatt as ‘one of the finest biographies ever published’, this is Fiona MacCarthy’s magisterial biography of William Morris, legendary designer and father of the Victorian Arts and Crafts movement.
‘Thrilling, absorbing and majestic.’ Independent
‘Wonderfully ambitious … The definitive Morris biography.’ Sunday Times
‘Delicious and intelligent, full of shining detail and mysteries respected.’ Daily Telegraph
‘Oh, the careful detail of this marvellous book! . . . A model of scholarly biography’. New Statesman
Since his death in 1896, William Morris has been celebrated as a giant of the Victorian era. But his genius was so multifaceted and so profound that its full extent has rarely been grasped. Many people may find it hard to believe that the greatest English designer of his time – possibly of all time – could also be internationally renowned as a founder of the socialist movement, and ranked as a poet with Tennyson and Browning.
In her definitive biography – insightful, comprehensive, addictively readable – the award-winning Fiona MacCarthy gives us a richly detailed portrait of Morris’s complex character for the first time, shedding light on his immense creative powers as artist and designer of furniture, fabrics, wallpaper, stained glass, tapestry, and books; his role as a poet, novelist and translator; on his psychology and his emotional life; his frenetic activities as polemicist and reformer; and his remarkable circle of friends, literary, artistic and political, including Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Edward Burne-Jones. It is a masterpiece of biographical art.
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Additional information
| Publisher | Faber & Faber, Main edition (5 Aug. 2010) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Paperback | 800 pages |
| ISBN-10 | 0571255590 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0571255597 |
| Dimensions | 15.4 x 3.3 x 23.3 cm |
by Martine Bewhay
What a delight to read. Beautifully written and would recommend to anyone interested in William Morris.
by spabbygirl
Great book, great customer service & delivery
by Amazon Customer
This was a gift for my niece,she told me she has started reading it and is enjoying it
by Sophie
This was an extremely interesting and in-depth exploration of William Morris’s life. I really enjoyed reading it and learnt a lot, not just about Morris’s life, but also about the lives of many other interesting people of that time.
by Simon D. Elsworth
Hard to get into but if you have an interest and want to know more about William Morris and his work its a good place to start.
by Kathleen Lilian Bellingham
This is the second copy of this book I have bought this one is for a friend as she was waiting for me to finish mine! It is extremely informative about William Morris and other artists that he associated with. At times there is a lot of detail that I chose to skip over. I particularly liked the descriptions of the Red House and Kelmscott Manor which really set my imagination going.It’s beautifully written. If William Morris was alive today I would really enjoy his company.
by Dy
Very well researched but more of an acedemic piece than one for a lighter read. Interesting insight into a very well known but actually not well known figure. I was interested in his politics and his interest in the environment. A man before his time. However poor assessment of his mental health I feel. Fiona McCarthy should have consulted more with mental health professionals on this.
by Kenneth J. Morris
Gosh! what a superb example of research and writing. Fantastically detailed but not at all boring. It must be extremely difficult to find a better constructed biography of a multi-talented person. Clearly a visionary well ahead of his time WM is so frequently described, by others, rather mono-thematically as a poet. Fiona MacCarthy-Mellor very properly describes WM as that rare combination of human talent a: “businessman/politician/artist/communicator and all-round visionary.