Redesigning the World: William Morris, the 1880S, and the Arts and Crafts

This study examines William Morris's influence on design in the 1880s, a decade that witnessed the start of a design renaissance, reshaping the way the world was seen as well as the way many thought it should look. Morris was at the center of this change, not only because of his celebrated hostility to aspects of machine culture - expressed as a socialist, politician, and poet - but because of his considerable practical success as a designer and businessman whose work had enormous influence on the next generation of artists, craftsmen, and designers. This book emphasizes the latter achievement. By examining Morris's relationship to the Arts and Crafts movement in general, as well as to such organizations as the Century Guild, the Art Workers' Guild, and the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, the author sheds new light not only on fin-de-siecle English culture, but also on Morris's complicated and often paradoxical role as a precursor of modern conceptions of both art and politics.