WILLIAM MORRIS ROMANTIC TO REVOLUTIONARY
by E. P. Thompson . introduction by Peter Linebaugh
“It is not only the standard biography of Morris; it makes us realize, as no other writer has done, how completely admirable a man this Victorian was.”- Robert Hughes, TIME
William Morris- the great 19 century craftsman, architect, designer, poet, and writer- remains a monumental figure whose influence resonates powerfully today. As an intellectual (an author of the seminal utopian novel NEWS FROM NOWHERE), his concern with artistic and human values led him to cross what he called the “river of fire” and become a committed socialist- committed not to some theoretical formula but to the day-by-day struggle of working women and men in Britain and to the evolution of his ideas about art, work, and how life should be lived. Many of his ideas accorded none too well with the reforming tendencies dominant in the Labour movement, nor with those of “orthodox” Marxism, which has looked elsewhere for inspiration. Both sides have been inclined to venerate Morris rather than to pay attention to what he said.
Originally written less than a decade before his ground breaking THE MAKING OF THE ENGLISH WORKING CLASS, E. P. Thompson brought to this biography his now trademark historical mastery, passion, wit and essential sympathy. It remains unsurpassed as the definitive work on this remarkable figure, by the major British historian of the 20th century.
978-1-60486-243-0 . $32.95 . 5.5.8.5 Paperback . 880 Pages . Biography/Politics
PM Press
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