William Morris's Arts and Crafts Aesthetic and the Decorated Book

269 Pages·2017·2.88 MB·English

by  Brandiann Molby

LLooyyoollaa UUnniivveerrssiittyy CChhiiccaaggoo
LLooyyoollaa eeCCoommmmoonnss
Dissertations Theses and Dissertations
2018
TThhee UUsseerr,, tthhee RReeaaddeerr,, aanndd tthhee PPoocckkeett CCaatthheeddrraall:: WWiilllliiaamm MMoorrrriiss''ss
AArrttss aanndd CCrraaffttss AAeesstthheettiicc aanndd tthhee DDeeccoorraatteedd BBooookk
Brandiann Molby
Loyola University Chicago
Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss
Part of the English Language and Literature Commons
RReeccoommmmeennddeedd CCiittaattiioonn
Molby, Brandiann, "The User, the Reader, and the Pocket Cathedral: William Morris's Arts and Crafts
Aesthetic and the Decorated Book" (2018). Dissertations. 2830.
https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/2830
This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons.
It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more
information, please contact [email protected].
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Copyright © 2018 Brandiann Molby
LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO
THE USER, THE READER, AND THE POCKET CATHEDRAL:
WILLIAM MORRIS’S ARTS AND CRAFTS AESTHETIC AND THE DECORATED BOOK
A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO
THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
PROGRAM IN ENGLISH
BY
BRANDIANN A. MOLBY
CHICAGO, IL
MAY 2018
Copyright by Brandiann A. Molby, 2018
All rights reserved.
x
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This dissertation is a continuation of my M.A. work at Royal Holloway, University of
London, and I am grateful to the English faculty at RHUL, in particular to Ruth Livesay and
Adam Roberts for their introduction to Victorian London, and to Mary Cowling for her too-short
lectures on Morris and the Pre-Raphaelites. This project took shape under the direction of the
English faculty at Loyola University Chicago, and I am deeply indebted to Francis Fennell, Jr.
for his kind guidance, to James A. Knapp for a grounding in textual studies and word/image
theory, to Micael Clarke for her matchless writing center pedagogy, and to Paul Eggert for
helping me identify the final theoretical aims of this project. I am also grateful for the tireless
efforts of the librarians at the Bodleian Library and Loyola’s Cudahy Library.
I thank Amy Kessel, Melissa Bradshaw, and Sherrie Weller for their kind mentorship, and
the staff of the Loyola University Chicago Writing Center, whom I have been privileged to work
alongside. I am also indebted to each member of the Loyola University Chicago Victorian
Society, which has continued, as it began, in the spirit of friendship, camaraderie, and humor.
I wish to offer my particular thanks to Lydia Craig for her peerless revision advice, to
Pamela Caughie for her encouragement early in my time at Loyola, and to Josh and Cindy
Wallace for their unflagging friendship. I am deeply grateful to Al and Diana Molby, Nate and
Katie Molby, and Dan and Lena Troike for their unfailing support.
My deepest thanks to Matt Molby, to whom this dissertation is dedicated.

!iii
For Matt
My acquaintance with Morris led me to look at the page of a book as a picture,
and a book as an ornament.
George Bernard Shaw
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iii
LIST OF FIGURES vii
INTRODUCTION 1
CHAPTER ONE: RIGHT SEEING: THEORIZING THE VICTORIAN VISUAL ETHICS
OF INTERPRETATION 20

CHAPTER TWO: MORRIS & CO.: ARCHITECTURE, THE NEO-GOTHIC, AND THE
REVOLUTIONARY POTENTIAL OF THE ARTS AND CRAFTS 101

CHAPTER THREE: THE USER AND THE READER: MORRIS’S ARTS AND CRAFTS
AESTHETIC AND THE DECORATED BOOK 142
CHAPTER FOUR: THE POCKET CATHEDRAL: THE KELMSCOTT CHAUCER AND
MORRIS’S ARTS AND CRAFTS AESTHETIC 197
BIBLIOGRAPHY 246
VITA 259

!vi
x
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1. The Derby Day, William Powell Frith 26
Figure 2. The Railway Station, William Powell Frith 27
Figure 3. A Private View at the Royal Academy, 1881, William Powell Frith 28
Figure 4. The Last Day in the Old Home, Robert Braithwaite Martineau 29
Figure 5. Past and Present, No. 3. Despair, Augustus Egg 31
Figure 6. Snow Storm: Hannibal and His Army Crossing the Alps, J.M.W. Turner 34
Figure 7. Christ in the House of His Parents, John Everett Millais 45
Figure 8. Contrasted Residences for the Rich and Poor, A.W.N. Pugin 50
Figure 9. Frontispiece (Chesney Wold) and title-page by ‘Phiz' of the Bradbury and Evans
edition of Dickens's Bleak House, H.K. Browne 55
Figure 10. Wren’s City Churches, Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo 59
Figure 11. The Blind Girl, John Everett Millais 61
Figure 12. Work, Ford Madox Brown 63
Figure 13. The Blessed Damozel, Dante Gabriel Rossetti 76
Figure 14. “The Climax, or the Kiss; Salome with the Head of John the Baptist (illustration for
the play Salome by Oscar Wilde), Aubrey Beardsley 91
Figure 15. Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket, J.M. Whistler 94
Figure 16. The Golden Stairs, Edward Burne-Jones 97
Figure 17. The Mill: Girls Dancing to Music by a River, Edward Burne-Jones 98
!vii
Figure 18. Frontispiece to 'News from Nowhere' (London: 1890, Kelmscott Press) 143
Figure 19. “Mr. Morris Reading Poems to Mr. Burne Jones,” Edward Burne-Jones 166
Figure 20. “The M’s at Ems,” Dante Gabriel Rossetti 167
Figure 21. Print from bound volume of forty-six proofs of woodcuts, printed from blocks
designed by William Morris for the Kelmscott Press 186
Figure 22. Golden type/Troy type/Chaucer type: Specimens of Fonts Developed for the
Kelmscott Press 210
Figure 23. Proof of a design after William Morris, title-page to The Works of Geoffrey
Chaucer, Kelmscott Press 212
Figure 23. Proof of a design after William Morris, illustration to The Works of Geoffrey
Chaucer (London: 1896, Kelmscott Press, page 1) 214
Figure 25. Proof of an illustration designed by Burne-Jones for the Kelmscott Chaucer:
p. 1, Prologue, Edward Burne-Jones 217
Figure 26. Proof of an illustration designed by Burne-Jones for the Kelmscott Chaucer:
p. 397, A Treatise on the Astrolabe 238
!viii
x
INTRODUCTION
Addressing the crowd at the National Association for the Advancement of Art in 1889,
William Morris lamented how hard it was to find a well-designed ewer and basin for the
bedroom. If you went shopping, he complained, all you would find would be pieces of “crockery
with a scrawl of fern leaves and convolvulus over it which […] gives you no pleasure, still less
any idea; it only gives you an impression (a mighty dull one) of bedroom.”1 Although essentially
functional, the set, in Morris’s view, fails in all the important ways: namely to give pleasure to
the consumer and the maker and to convey an idea through its form and decoration, even a rather
basic idea of the natural world. The only real success of the ewer and basin lies in the fact that its
“ornament, that special form which the ineptitude of the fern scrawl and the idiocy of the handle
had taken, has sold so many dozen or gross more of that toilet set than of others” and thus is a
commercial success even if an artistic and social failure.2 For Morris, the impractical designs,
too-perfect finishes, and cursory ornamentation found on most household items are not only
symptomatic of the wider social decay brought about by industrialism’s progress, but they are
actually fueling it.
While it may seem surprising to argue that the ewer and basin have the capacity to
influence society, I contend that Morris’s argument is a central, largely unaddressed component

1 Morris, William. “The Arts and Crafts of Today.” Art and Its Producers and The Arts and Crafts
of Today: Two Lectures Delivered for the Association for the National Advancement of Arts. Paternoster
Row, London: Longmans & Co., 1901. 36-7. Print.
2 Ibid.
!1