While much has been written about William Morris, little attention has been paid to his romances, which have generally been dismissed as 'escapist' or best smiled upon as self-indulgent fantasy. This 1987 book sets out to examine more carefully the premises of such dismissive terminology, looking at the ways in which our sense of the 'escapism' of Morris's knack for fairy-tale writing can be modified or expanded when seen in relation to the development of his imagination in other spheres, both political and creative. His adoption of romance, with its very specific and highly formalized demands, and his use of medieval themes, enabled him to explore, sometimes with freshness and vivacity, the controversial issues of his age. Dr Hodgson's argument will be of interest to Morris specialists, but also accessible to those not familiar with his romances, since she is careful to describe the stories before contextualizing them.

This well illustrated book celebrates every aspect of the wide-ranging achievements of William Morris - writer, designer, cultural critic, revolutionary socialist - with particular emphasis on their relevance to our own times. The book makes available up-to-date Morris scholarship in accessible form. Written by a group of international scholars who took part in a conference marking the centenary of the death of Morris in 1896, the book has sections devoted to Morris and Literature (covering texts from The Earthly Paradise to the late romances); Morris, the Arts & Crafts and the New World (including discussions of his influence in Rhode Island, Boston, Ontario and New Zealand); and Morris, Gender and Politics (with fresh consideration of his relation to Victorian ideas of manliness and of the particular qualities of his anti-statist politics). The latter section also draws attention to a hitherto unknown play by Morris's daughter May and concludes with an account of his biographer, the late E.P. Thompson.