The Kelmscott Chaucer

The Kelmscott Chaucer is the most memorable and beautiful edition of the complete works of the first great English poet. Next to The Gutenberg Bible, it is considered the outstanding typographic achievement of all time. There are 87 full-page illustrations by Sir Edward Burne-Jones, and the borders, decorations and initials are drawn byWilliam Morris himself. Only 425 copies of this magnificent work were produced in 1896, and this beautiful monochrome facsimile, slightly smaller than the original, makes this glorious book available to all. A fascinating Introduction by Nicholas Barker places the book and its importance in context. The main text is followed by a black and white facsimile of ANoteby William Morris on his Aims in Founding the Kelmscott Press, together with a Short History of the Press by S C Cockerell.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1982.

100 pages of beautiful copyright-free tailpieces, decorative letters, elaborate floral borders and frames, samples of body type, and all 98 delicate woodcut illustrations. A magnificent capsulation of fine printing beauty for browsing or for use by commercial artists.

"The Kelmscott Chaucer is widely held to be one of the most magnificent printed books ever produced. For forty years Morris and Burne-Jones had worked together on a variety of projects: this was their last and greatest venture. The book describes the growth of the monumental Chaucer from a more modest concept through its many production problems to its final form on publication in 1896. The author also traces the development of the ideas for the illustrations which were suggested by the text and modified by practical concern for page layout and reproduction quality. There are a number of illustrations of designs which Burne-Jones made but never used. The final drawings from which ink interpretations were made and the woodblocks engraved are reproduced to facsimile standards. There are a number of reproductions of the engravings themselves, and several of the full decorated pages are shown."--book jacket.

From a quantitative point of view the achievement of the Kelmscott Press may not seem impressive: between 1891 and 1898 it produced fifty-two books and a set of specimen pages for another book. Yet each was remarkably beautiful. Designed by William Morris, printed on hand-presses, ornamented with initials and borders by Morris, and illustrated often by Edward Burne-Jones, these few Kelmscott Press books are famous everywhere today. Why they have so profoundly affected twentieth-century theories of book design and what cultural significance the founding of the Kelmscott Press played are some of the questions the author considers.

Burne-Jones, the Pre-Raphaelite painter and leader of the Aesthetic Movement is celebrated in this biographical, art and reference title that reproduces many of his works. Born in Birmingham, the son of a craftsman, Burne-Jones showed precocious ability at school. At Oxford University he met William Morris where they established a mutual interest in art. Their first important influence was that of one of the founding fathers of Pre-Raphaelitism, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, with whom in 1857 they painted murals at the Oxford Union. After Oxford his painting career developed and he rapidly established his position as the leader of the Aesthetic Movement. Burne-Jones also worked for Morris's firm, supplying designs for stained glass, tapestries, tiles and other products, including his own illustrations for the celebrated Kelmscott Chaucer.