Description

A tireless champion of her father William, and a gifted designer and craftswoman in her own right, Mary (May) Morris (1862-1938) had a unique insight into his extraordinary career and creativity. It was she who undertook the exacting task of editing the twenty-four volumes of her father's collected works (also reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection). In 1936, towards the end of her life, she published this supplementary two-volume work, which includes further writings and sympathetic commentary, revealing 'the development of a mind which was singularly of one piece, however many-sided'. Volume 1 addresses William Morris' artistic and literary achievements, containing introductory remarks and analysis, nearly fifty miscellaneous pieces on arts and crafts, and several unpublished poems, translations and letters. Volume 2 addresses Morris' political aims and ideals, opening with George Bernard Shaw's essay 'Morris as I Knew Him' and containing May's substantial assessment of her father's socialism.