Hammersmith: The Kelmscott Press, 1896. First Kelmscott edition. Presentation copy inscribed by Morris on the second blank seven days before publication, “To Edward Burne-Jones from William Morris, April 5th 1896." Burne-Jones’s book label, printed in Morris’s Golden type, is on the front pastedown. This is one of three hundred copies printed on paper; there were also eight on vellum. Burne-Jones designed books for the Kelmscott Press between 1892 and 1898. At the end of his life, the artist wrote: “Morris’s friendship began everything for me; everything that I afterwards cared for." Morris and Burne-Jones met in 1853 as undergraduates at Exeter College, Oxford. Bonded by a mutual admiration for medieval culture and a desire to resist industrialization’s impact on art, they abandoned their divinity studies and, at the suggestion of their friend Dante Gabriel Rossetti, moved together to London. Their collaboration became one of the most defining creative partnerships of the arts and crafts movement, shaping its ideals through their work in painting, design, and book arts.

Small quarto. Ornamental woodcut title page, woodcut border to opening text page, woodcut initials, printer’s device on last page. Contents printed in Golden type in red and black. Original limp vellum with yapp edges, smooth spine lettered in gilt in Golden type, edges untrimmed, several gatherings uncut, green silk ties. With the bookplate of Burne-Jones to upper pastedown. Front cover bowed, front joint nicked at tie, vellum lightly marked, contents crisp and clean. A Near Fine copy.

The text was edited by the bookseller and author Frederick Startridge Ellis (1830 - 1901), a close friend of Morris and Burne-Jones.

Peterson A38. Near Fine (Item #6867)