Top: William Morris, Trademark for Kelmscott Press, 1892
Above: William Morris, Page from Morris's "Aims in Founding the Kelmscott Press,"' 1898

William Morris, designer, The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, Walter Crane, illustrator, 1894

The book revived
By the late 1800s the quality of commercial printing drastically declined largely due to the influences of the industrial revolution. In the words of Douglas McMurtrie, "British printing standards were at their worst, and ugliness ran riot in the field of typography."¹⁸ William Morris (1834-1896), an already well established artist in the Arts and Crafts fields of tapestries and furniture, turned his attention to this ugliness. With the leadership of Morris and a close friend of his, Emery Walker (1851-1933), a book design renaissance began. The movement called for "individual expression by both designer and worker, truth to the nature of materials and methods," and a reunion with art and craft.¹⁹ Although Morris was already 50 when he became involved with book and type design, he is best know for these efforts.
         In 1890 Morris and Emery established the Kelmscott Press so their efforts in type and book design and printing could take place under one roof. Their design treatise was based on the design of 15th century medieval manuscripts and reads quite similarly to some of the definitions of artists books in the previous chapter. "The ornament, whatever it is, picture or pattern work, should be part of the whole scheme of the book."²⁰ He considered book design to be similar to architecture, where careful planning of every aspect - paper, ink, typeface, spacing, margins, illustration and ornament all result in design unity.
         The Kelmscott signature work, The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, was referred to as a "pocket cathedral,"²¹ not unlike Abeyta's definition in Chapter One, which defines the artists book as a self contained gallery. An active socialist, Morris was unsettled by the fact that these books needed to be sold for £20 and were too expensive for Everyman.²² There is little documentation of Morris' socialist ideas influencing artists in the 1960s and 1970s, but the idea that art should be available to the masses is shared by both.
         During his life Morris modeled a passion for fine craftsmanship and after his death, Walker carried on the legacy of fine printing that continues to this day. While Morris contributed greatly to the art of book design and printing, some of his rules of proportion, margins, decoration and type density were so rigid they may have actually inhibited the artistic development in book arts. Still, his work in the Arts and Crafts Movement and transformation of book and typography design had a major influence, even if it has since stirred design reactions in the opposite direction.
         The Arts and Crafts Movement had considerable influence in America, most notable in the work of architect Frank Lloyd Wright. William Morris inspired Wright and friend William Herman Winslow, an amateur photographer and printer, to collaborate on a book project in the style of Kelmscott Press, entitled The House Beautiful. The text, written by William C. Gammett, a Unitarian minister and friend of Wright's uncle, is about the various elements that work together to create "the house beautiful." This text addresses Wright's ideas for the aesthetic, practical, social and spiritual concerns of creating a home. In the original edition there was a booklet attached to the front endsheet of twelve photogravures (a photographically etched printing plate) of weeks and wildflowers - arranged and photographed by Wright - printed on mitsumata, a handmade Japanese paper. The design elements in this booklet seem a direct link to his interest in Japanese design, and also his recent attraction to the relatively new medium of photography.²³
         Wright frames Gannett's text with intricately drawn stylized abstractions of nature which are similar to those we see in the following years in his stain glass and furniture designs. The generous margins are a break from the book design of the period and rather suggest an artistic decision on Wright's part. As in books designed by William Morris, the pages are designed as a spread rather than the individual page. A quote from Wright in the foreword speaks for the many artists that are exploring the format of the book during this time. "And the book is becoming to you and to me what the cathedral was in the Middle Ages. It embalms for us in type, the qualifications our time."²⁴

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