Kazu's Library

William Morris, The Wood beyond the World (London: Lawrence and Bullen, 1895).  




This is one of the so-called 'prose romances' by William Morris. He often wrote this kind of fantasy novels set in an entirely imaginative fantasy world in his late life. Morris's prose romances are regarded as a precursor of fantasy literature today.

The Wood beyond the World was first published by Kelmscott Press in 1894. My copy is a reprint for general readership published in 1895. Though looking unattractive, it is somewhat interesting because it used to belong to Robert Blatchford (1851-1943), an English socialist and journalist issuing a weekly newspaper called The Clarion and the author of Merrie England (1893), and his neat signature is left on the flyleaf.

Blatchford is allegedly the most popular socialist of the 1890s, and as a younger contemporary, he was greatly influenced by William Morris (1834-1896), a leading socialist activist in the 1880s and the founder of the Socialist League. In an obituary to Morris, Blatchford writes that 'he was our best man' and that he was the only 'celebrity' he ever sought (Waters 21).

Blatchford was also inspired by Morris's literary works. He spares two chapters (pp. 90-115) for his works in his My Favourite Books (1901), in which The Wood beyond the World is mentioned as one of many books by Morris he read (perhaps with this copy!)(p. 92). In the same book, he writes that he considers Morris's The Defence of Guenevere (1858) and parts of The Earthly Paradise highest of all the poetry, while A Dream of John Ball and The Roots of the Mountains (both also by Morris) are first of all the prose (p. 93). Moreover, it is said that he wrote his own utopian novel, The Sorcery Shop (1907), deriving much inspiration from Morris's News from Nowhere (1890)(Waters 27). As a great admirer of Morris's literary works, Blatchford owned this copy of The Wood beyond the World probably together with many other books by the same author.

For more information about the relationship between Morris and Blatchford, see Chris Waters, 'William Morris and the Socialism of Robert Blatchford', Journal of William Morris Studies 5.2 (1982): 20-31. See also Robert Blatchford, My Favourite Books (London, 1901)