Letters of William Morris

Book Reviews Letters of William Morris The Collected Letters of William Morris: Volume III 1889-1892. Volume TV 1893-1896. Norman Kelvin, ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996. lxvi + 537pp. lviii + 465 pp. $45.00 each 1996 IS THE HUNDREDTH anniversary of the death of William Morris at the comparatively early age of 62. Various exhibitions and conferences will mark the year, but few events can be as notable as the completion of this edition of Morris's collected letters. Although Norman Kelvin generously dedicates the final volume "To all who have participated in the making of this edition," it is he who did the work and deserves the credit, although no doubt he has been considerably aided by his assistant editor, Holly Harrison. The annotations are breathtaking in their thoroughness. There are numerous illustrations, reproduced in a serviceable way. It probably would have added too many pages to include a biographical appendix in each book rather than having to follow the cross reference to the first mention of an individual, which may well be in one or another of the volumes. This enterprise began publication in 1984 (the 150th anniversary of Morris's birth); the second volume, in two parts, appeared in 1987, and now we have the concluding two. The first book covered 1848 to 1880 (659 letters); the second, ending in 1888 (1104 letters); and now here are a further 924, ending with a letter written on 14 September 1896 shortly before Morris's death on 3 October. This last letter is to his beloved daughter Jenny and deserves to be quoted in full: Dearest own Child, I wish my hand were not so pen feeble, & then I could write you a proper letter; but as it is I must ask you let this scrawl pass. I like your letters very much darling; please write me another, & pardon me if can't answer it, or only in this fashion. Your most loving father WM. I believe I am somewhat better. (IV, 391) This and the two previous letters in the collection, heartbreakingly brief and written from his deathbed, are without annotation, other than their sources. Morris's voice is alone at the end. But throughout these volumes the extensive annotations will be of extraordinary help to all those in the future who wish to discover more about one of the greatest figures of the nineteenth century. Already the fruits of the edition have been 463 ELT 39:4 1996 demonstrated in the use to which the first two volumes were put by Fiona MacCarthy in her recently published new biography. Although Morris is always himself and one has a sense of his personality in all his letters, many are quite often purpose driven; in most cases they are specifically practical and not introspective. In these concluding volumes comparatively few letters—even those to one of his oldest friends, Philip Webb, addressed as "My dear Fellow"—have the emotional charge as those letters to Jenny. And even in those the emotion is derived more from the situation than their actual content. Jenny, an epileptic, was leading the secluded life of an invalid. Touchingly and gallantly, Morris attempted to bring the world to her, to tell her of his doings. May, his other daughter, had become his business and political partner. His correspondence with her, and with his wife, Jane, tends to be rather dispassionate, barely reflecting the personal drama that might have been swirling about them. At this time, May was involved in some sense with George Bernard Shaw, yet made an unwise marriage to H. Halliday Sparling. Morris appears to have achieved a certain serenity with Jane, even though her lover, Wilfrid Blunt, had business dealings with Morris, chronicled in the correspondence between them. One doesn't quite know what the situation might have been in the letters he wrote to his oldest friend, Edward Burne-Jones. He generally saw Burne-Jones weekly on Sundays so they may not have corresponded much; nevertheless one fears that many splendid letters were lost or destroyed. In these volumes, there are just a few sentences that survive for quotation. The record is better for Morris's letters to his closest woman...