Marrin's Bookshop

Synopsis

A poem. new edition.

Item Description

Large 8vo. 8.5 x 6 inches. viii + 445 pp. Text in double columns. Bound in original red cloth, gilt with decorative blocks on spine, and within borders on front board. Rough cut edges. Extremities worn including corners and head and tail of spine, and stained. First free endpaper has frayed edge and page edges, flyleaves and preliminary pages foxed, but otherwise a very good clean copy. Decorated by title page vignette. New edition of the epic poem by William Morris (1834-96), artist and designer, first published 1868-70. It relates the story of a group of medieval wanderers searching for a land of everlasting life and includes sets of seasonal tales, two for each month, on either classical or medieval and Norse themes. The opening stanza takes the reader away from the grime of Victorian industrialism: 'Forget six counties overhung with smoke, / Forget the snorting steam and piston stroke, /Forget the spreading of the hideous town; Think rather of the packhorse on the down, / And dream of London, small, and white, and clean, / The clear Thames bordered by its gardens green.'