What do you think?
Rate this book
William Morris: Romantic to Revolutionary
This biographical study is a window into 19th-century British society & the life of Wm Morris--the great craftsman, architect, designer, poet & writer--who remains a monumental & influential figure to this day. This account chronicles how his concern with artistic & human values led him to cross what he called the 'river of fire' & become a committed socialist--committed not only to the theory of socialism but also to the practice of it in the day-to-day struggle of working people in Victorian England. While both the British Labor Movement & the Marxists have venerated Morris, this legacy of his life proves that many of his ideas didn't accord with the dominant reforming tendencies, providing a unique perspective on Morris scholarship.
841 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1977
38 people are currently reading
749 people want to read
About the author
E.P. Thompson
83 books224 followersEdward Palmer Thompson was an English historian, writer, marxist and peace campaigner. He is probably best known today for his historical work on the radical movements in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, in particular The Making of the English Working Class (1963). He also published influential biographies of William Morris (1955) and (posthumously) William Blake (1993) and was a prolific journalist and essayist. He also published the novel The Sykaos Papers and a collection of poetry.
Thompson was one of the principal intellectuals of the Communist Party in Great Britain. Although he left the party in 1956 over the Soviet invasion of Hungary, he nevertheless remained a "historian in the Marxist tradition," calling for a rebellion against Stalinism as a prerequisite for the restoration of communists' "confidence in our own revolutionary perspectives". Thompson played a key role in the first New Left in Britain in the late 1950s. He was a vociferous left-wing socialist critic of the Labour governments of 1964–70 and 1974–79, and during the 1980s, he was the leading intellectual light of the movement against nuclear weapons in Europe.
Thompson was one of the principal intellectuals of the Communist Party in Great Britain. Although he left the party in 1956 over the Soviet invasion of Hungary, he nevertheless remained a "historian in the Marxist tradition," calling for a rebellion against Stalinism as a prerequisite for the restoration of communists' "confidence in our own revolutionary perspectives". Thompson played a key role in the first New Left in Britain in the late 1950s. He was a vociferous left-wing socialist critic of the Labour governments of 1964–70 and 1974–79, and during the 1980s, he was the leading intellectual light of the movement against nuclear weapons in Europe.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
June 23, 2025
Someone I generally admire who writes novels and used to present architecture TV where he praises or disapproves of things verbosely while wearing a suit once told me he thought Thompson was a terrible writer of prose. This happened at a time when I admired that person to the extent I thought he must be right about practically everything (except Israel). But he's wrong about this, too - Thompson was a sharp, vigorous writer, capable of nuance where needed, fluent, powerfully argumentative. But he had a fatal flaw which was a peculiar garrulousness, where if he's set himself onto something he obviously cares terribly about he won't let go for literally hundreds of pages (think here of the dreadful 'Letter to Kolakowski' or the bizarre rants about Methodism in Making of the English Working Class). No writer is good enough to make that work when the subject is, as here, the battles between the small sects of British socialism in the 1880s and 1890s. The first half here is wise and sympathetic on how Morris' romanticism gradually led him to an actually very realist, hard-edged class-struggle socialism, via Ruskin, medievalism and an infatuation with Iceland (and it's also very good on why it is Morris' poetry has aged so badly, and why his marriage was such a disaster). Although the account of the SDF and the Socialist League seems broadly correct there is vastly too much of it and it stops this book from being the masterpiece it could have been - incredibly, the original 1955 edition included another 100 pages on the subject, the absolute madman.
But this really is an excellent book if you've a little patience. Morris' particular brand of Marxism could never quite be mine, but I suppose I would ultimately accept losing perverse buildings, haribo, instant noodles, kaiju films, K-dramas, late 1990s R&B or whatever terrible artefact of capitalist culture it is I most like, in the service of destroying this disgusting system.
But this really is an excellent book if you've a little patience. Morris' particular brand of Marxism could never quite be mine, but I suppose I would ultimately accept losing perverse buildings, haribo, instant noodles, kaiju films, K-dramas, late 1990s R&B or whatever terrible artefact of capitalist culture it is I most like, in the service of destroying this disgusting system.
March 8, 2015
Extremely enjoyable, hopeful, fiery socialist biography of the world's greatest wallpaper magnate.
July 5, 2017
"History has remembered the kings and warriors because they destroyed; Art has remembered the people because they created."
William Morris
William Morris sits atop the house of history like a weathervane turning against the prevailing winds rather than with them.
One of the earliest British socialists, he abhorred modernity. An entrepreneurial spirit of manifold passions, he preferred the middle ages to the Renaissance.
To the manor born (1834), cultivated as an effete poet with other rich and eccentric boys (Edward Burne-Jones, Dante Gabriel Rossetti) of the "Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood" at Oxford, Morris spent his middle- and old age calling for revolution from street corners in working class districts of London.
This essay is derived from a book written long ago, 1955 to be exact, by E.P. Thompson entitled, "William Morris: Romantic to Revolutionary," purchased for a mere $2.95 at Labyrinth Books.
A citizen of Victorian England's roaring industrial empire, Morris could not abide by the times and spent his youth fancying life in the olden days; crafting poems in the style of Lord Alfred Tennyson replete with knights errant and creamy damsels making loving in limpid streambeds.
The society he loathed lauded him, blessed him with the poet's special fame, and validated the writings through which he sought to escape contemporary surroundings.
His Medievalism, Thompson wrote, was typical of the late-Romantic period in mid-nineteenth century England, an impulsive revolt against the Railway Age that hailed an older society of finer values than profit and capital utility.
Departed from academia Morris built "Red House," with an eye to infusing architecture with something of the Romantic revolt; adapting "late Gothic methods of building to the needs of the nineteenth century," said Thompson.
A visitor to Red House in 1863 describe it thusly:
"The deep red colour, the great sloping, tiled roofs; the small-paned widows; the low, wide porch and massive door; the surrounding garden divided into many squares, hedged by sweetbriar or wild rose, each enclosure with its own particular show of flowers; on this side a green alley with a bowling green, on that orchard walks amid gnarled old fruit-trees; all struck me as vividly picturesque and uniquely original."
Formation of his firm Morris & Co., followed as he and his partners set out to establish a company of artisans with an eye to reviving the minor arts in England in, "an age of shoddy," according to Thompson.
Medievalism again provided the recipe.
"I have tried," Morris wrote, "to produce goods which should be genuine so far as their mere substances are concerned, and should have on that account the primary beauty in them which belongs to naturally treated substances: have tried for instance to make woollen substances as woollen as possible, cotton as cotton as possible, and so on; have used only the dyes which are natural and simple, because they produce beauty almost without the intervention of art; all this quite apart from the design of stuffs and whatnot."
Glass-firing, woodcutting, bookbinding, pottery, tile-glazing, weaving, embroidery and tapestry all came in for study under his industrious gaze.
He labored, with mixed success, to erase the line separating designer from studio craftsman so that the firm's employees might tap their own creative abilities and thereby alleviate the more grinding aspects of the work.
The venture was met with professional hostility as the product of intruders lacking commercial credentials, but soon enough forced its goal of challenging the reigning principles in decorative art.
Again, the wealthy social creatures Morris loathed bucked up his bank account and acclaimed his creations.
Never grateful, Morris found himself pushed; first toward the ineffectual liberalism of William Gladstone; and finally toward Marx as the Victorian era lurched deeper into violent foreign adventurism and greater abuse of working people.
"We are," he wrote, "living in an epoch when there is combat between commercialism, or the system of reckless waste, and communism, or the system of neighborly common sense."
Bet you never heard it put that way before.
Morris' communism was not the mid-century brand the mature among us became familiar with; the collective mass crushing the beleaguered individual.
A walking paradox, his collectivist vision could not be distinguished from his approach to the arts and was focused upon the individual; guaranteed the single person rights and comforts and, most importantly, the fullest realization of one's talents.
"Education," readers of his socialist tribune, Justice, were told, "must of necessity cease to be a preparation for a life of commercial success on the one hand, or of irresponsible labour on the other. It will become rather a habit of making the best of the individual's powers in all directions to which he is led by his innate disposition; so that no man will ever 'finish' his education while he is alive."
The revolution he foresaw would restore a pre-industrial community still in existence, but ravaged by the commercial Mammon to which every able body was obligated to consummate itself.
His Socialist miracle did not propose the erection of a new structure upon the old, rather reinforced that which had been weakened by economic materialism:
"That true society of loved and lover, parent and child, friend and friend, the society of well-wishers, of reasonable people conscious of the aspirations of humanity and of the duties we owe it through one another..."
His biographer observed that Morris' utopia called for the reestablishment of the personal and voluntary bonds of society and a doing away with the "impersonal and compulsive" relations rooted in a rule by the owners of property.
His thoughts, mostly old and long-forgotten, bear a contemporary ring in many passages.
"Civilization," Morris said, "is simply an organized injustice, a mere instrument for oppression, so much the worse than that which has gone before it, as its pretensions are higher, its slavery subtler, its mastery hard to overthrow because it is supported by such a dense mass of commonplace well-being and comfort."
His alternative served those to the right and left, secular and devout alike. It entailed a "remedy to be found in the simplification of life and the curbing of luxury and the desires for tyranny and mastery it gives birth to."
So much of his effort would be lost in the silly, internecine debates that have come to characterize left-wing politics. He endured and played a leading role in the split of the original Socialist League, fought the idea of running labor candidates for politics until that became the chosen road and bent to it again.
He fought the anarchists of Prince Kropotkin on one side, acolytes of the still-living Freidrich Hegel, on another, and the Fabian Socialists of George Bernard Shaw to his right.
He was caught in a terrible "Bloody Sunday" police riot in London, which caused a severe curtailing of his belief in the ability of civil movements (read: unarmed) to bring about revolutionary change, and spent himself silly on the "Justice" publication until he was rudely moved off its board of editors by men of different mien.
He died in his sixties, spent with efforts in so many of life's theaters, his legacy in poetry secure, his influence upon design engrained in the minds of those who launched the Bauhaus, the force of his belief in the working man evident in the gains made over the ensuing century.
Said the poet William Butler Yeats of Morris, "No man I have known was so well loved; you saw him producing everywhere organization and beauty, seeming almost in the same instant, helpless and triumphant."
And that is living.
William Morris
William Morris sits atop the house of history like a weathervane turning against the prevailing winds rather than with them.
One of the earliest British socialists, he abhorred modernity. An entrepreneurial spirit of manifold passions, he preferred the middle ages to the Renaissance.
To the manor born (1834), cultivated as an effete poet with other rich and eccentric boys (Edward Burne-Jones, Dante Gabriel Rossetti) of the "Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood" at Oxford, Morris spent his middle- and old age calling for revolution from street corners in working class districts of London.
This essay is derived from a book written long ago, 1955 to be exact, by E.P. Thompson entitled, "William Morris: Romantic to Revolutionary," purchased for a mere $2.95 at Labyrinth Books.
A citizen of Victorian England's roaring industrial empire, Morris could not abide by the times and spent his youth fancying life in the olden days; crafting poems in the style of Lord Alfred Tennyson replete with knights errant and creamy damsels making loving in limpid streambeds.
The society he loathed lauded him, blessed him with the poet's special fame, and validated the writings through which he sought to escape contemporary surroundings.
His Medievalism, Thompson wrote, was typical of the late-Romantic period in mid-nineteenth century England, an impulsive revolt against the Railway Age that hailed an older society of finer values than profit and capital utility.
Departed from academia Morris built "Red House," with an eye to infusing architecture with something of the Romantic revolt; adapting "late Gothic methods of building to the needs of the nineteenth century," said Thompson.
A visitor to Red House in 1863 describe it thusly:
"The deep red colour, the great sloping, tiled roofs; the small-paned widows; the low, wide porch and massive door; the surrounding garden divided into many squares, hedged by sweetbriar or wild rose, each enclosure with its own particular show of flowers; on this side a green alley with a bowling green, on that orchard walks amid gnarled old fruit-trees; all struck me as vividly picturesque and uniquely original."
Formation of his firm Morris & Co., followed as he and his partners set out to establish a company of artisans with an eye to reviving the minor arts in England in, "an age of shoddy," according to Thompson.
Medievalism again provided the recipe.
"I have tried," Morris wrote, "to produce goods which should be genuine so far as their mere substances are concerned, and should have on that account the primary beauty in them which belongs to naturally treated substances: have tried for instance to make woollen substances as woollen as possible, cotton as cotton as possible, and so on; have used only the dyes which are natural and simple, because they produce beauty almost without the intervention of art; all this quite apart from the design of stuffs and whatnot."
Glass-firing, woodcutting, bookbinding, pottery, tile-glazing, weaving, embroidery and tapestry all came in for study under his industrious gaze.
He labored, with mixed success, to erase the line separating designer from studio craftsman so that the firm's employees might tap their own creative abilities and thereby alleviate the more grinding aspects of the work.
The venture was met with professional hostility as the product of intruders lacking commercial credentials, but soon enough forced its goal of challenging the reigning principles in decorative art.
Again, the wealthy social creatures Morris loathed bucked up his bank account and acclaimed his creations.
Never grateful, Morris found himself pushed; first toward the ineffectual liberalism of William Gladstone; and finally toward Marx as the Victorian era lurched deeper into violent foreign adventurism and greater abuse of working people.
"We are," he wrote, "living in an epoch when there is combat between commercialism, or the system of reckless waste, and communism, or the system of neighborly common sense."
Bet you never heard it put that way before.
Morris' communism was not the mid-century brand the mature among us became familiar with; the collective mass crushing the beleaguered individual.
A walking paradox, his collectivist vision could not be distinguished from his approach to the arts and was focused upon the individual; guaranteed the single person rights and comforts and, most importantly, the fullest realization of one's talents.
"Education," readers of his socialist tribune, Justice, were told, "must of necessity cease to be a preparation for a life of commercial success on the one hand, or of irresponsible labour on the other. It will become rather a habit of making the best of the individual's powers in all directions to which he is led by his innate disposition; so that no man will ever 'finish' his education while he is alive."
The revolution he foresaw would restore a pre-industrial community still in existence, but ravaged by the commercial Mammon to which every able body was obligated to consummate itself.
His Socialist miracle did not propose the erection of a new structure upon the old, rather reinforced that which had been weakened by economic materialism:
"That true society of loved and lover, parent and child, friend and friend, the society of well-wishers, of reasonable people conscious of the aspirations of humanity and of the duties we owe it through one another..."
His biographer observed that Morris' utopia called for the reestablishment of the personal and voluntary bonds of society and a doing away with the "impersonal and compulsive" relations rooted in a rule by the owners of property.
His thoughts, mostly old and long-forgotten, bear a contemporary ring in many passages.
"Civilization," Morris said, "is simply an organized injustice, a mere instrument for oppression, so much the worse than that which has gone before it, as its pretensions are higher, its slavery subtler, its mastery hard to overthrow because it is supported by such a dense mass of commonplace well-being and comfort."
His alternative served those to the right and left, secular and devout alike. It entailed a "remedy to be found in the simplification of life and the curbing of luxury and the desires for tyranny and mastery it gives birth to."
So much of his effort would be lost in the silly, internecine debates that have come to characterize left-wing politics. He endured and played a leading role in the split of the original Socialist League, fought the idea of running labor candidates for politics until that became the chosen road and bent to it again.
He fought the anarchists of Prince Kropotkin on one side, acolytes of the still-living Freidrich Hegel, on another, and the Fabian Socialists of George Bernard Shaw to his right.
He was caught in a terrible "Bloody Sunday" police riot in London, which caused a severe curtailing of his belief in the ability of civil movements (read: unarmed) to bring about revolutionary change, and spent himself silly on the "Justice" publication until he was rudely moved off its board of editors by men of different mien.
He died in his sixties, spent with efforts in so many of life's theaters, his legacy in poetry secure, his influence upon design engrained in the minds of those who launched the Bauhaus, the force of his belief in the working man evident in the gains made over the ensuing century.
Said the poet William Butler Yeats of Morris, "No man I have known was so well loved; you saw him producing everywhere organization and beauty, seeming almost in the same instant, helpless and triumphant."
And that is living.
February 26, 2022
In 1885, laid up with gout following a violent street demonstration, Morris’s friend Burne-Jones advised him to give up his life in the Socialist movement, to which Morris replied:
…I can’t help it. The ideas which have taken hold of me will not let me rest: nor can I see anything else worth thinking of. How can it be otherwise, when to be in society, which to many seems an orderly arrangement for allowing decent people to get through their lives creditably and with some pleasure, seems mere cannibalism; nay worse… [it] is grown so corrupt, so steeped in hypocrisy and lies, that one turns from one stratum of it with another with hopeless loathing. One must turn to hope, and only in one direction do I see it – on the road to Revolution: everything else is gone now…
My rereading of Thompson’s epic account of the life of William Morris left me with mixed impressions.
Firstly, I feel the author got a little too close to his material: often, more than half of each page is given up to extended quotations from Morris’s writings or other related material. Rather than use a judicious point here and there to prove an interpretation, it’s almost as if Thompson simply lined a thousand or so quotes up in chronological order and then wrote from one to the other.
Secondly, he does prove his point that Morris’s move ‘to revolutionary’ involved his becoming a true exponent of scientific socialism, or communism. However, the time for his actual action in this sphere was relatively short: merely the mid-1800s. The combined police and military attack on ‘Bloody Sunday’ in 1887 seems to have been the high water mark of his involvement, after which his enthusiasm and indeed, his hope, definitely waned.
Thirdly, it was quite dispiriting to see that so much of the development of a true left wing ideology in Britain was forever bedevilled by internal disputes and schisms. Just keeping the Democratic Federation, the Socialist League, the Social Democratic Federation, the Independent Labour Party, the Fabian Society, the Lib-Lab movement and other organizations straight was difficult enough, and Thompson’s efforts to differentiate the anarchist, parliamentary socialist and non-parliamentary Socialist (which included Morris) elements was quite helpful.
The final Appendix takes on several critics of the earlier edition of this same work, and very helpfully develops the concept that Morris was a Communist, a Utopian and a Moralist: all brought together in a relatively new configuration of Marxism. Following Engels’ Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, visionary utopias are normally dismissed by strict Marxists, but Thompson makes a persuasive argument that Morris in fact allowed for a fundamental moral and utopian understanding of the end of the class struggle in a communist world.
Finally, the overwhelming impression is one of fervent idealism and, not surprisingly, general despair. His beauty of a wife did not love him. His friends from the Pre-Raphaelite movement did not follow into him socialist agitation. His period of revolutionary activity was fraught with disagreements, theoretical and personal. Still, he kept his creative energy, whether it was in designing his Kelmscott Press edition of Chaucer or imagining a utopian socialist world as he did in News from Nowhere. His heart was forever fixed on creating something beautiful and satisfying for his fellow men.
One’s disappointments and sadness seem to develop in direct proportion to the extent of one’s imagination and idealism.
Highly recommended.
Original review:
This monumental work takes upon itself the task of describing the life and work of one of the most original figures of late Victorian Britain. A poet, a publisher, a translator, a novelist, a wallpaper designer, a writer of fantasy, a furniture maker and a socialist, William Morris tied together many disparate threads of cultural and political development in his time. To make sense of all these individual enthusiasms is the task Thompson undertook and acquitted himself very well in doing so.
Thompson's major work is The History of the English Working Class, and its truly vibrant prose brought to the story of the development of the industrial proletariat a broadly sympathetic understanding and discerning judgment of the inequities of the time. That he also wrote about William Morris, who blended his artistic temperaments with a fundamental sense of social justice, is no far stretch for Thompson.
Hopefully, I'll find time to reread this work which I plowed through about fifty years ago. I have been rereading a lot of Morris' early fantasies and utopian 'histories', and Thompson's work would blend in nicely with this effort.
Highly recommended.
…I can’t help it. The ideas which have taken hold of me will not let me rest: nor can I see anything else worth thinking of. How can it be otherwise, when to be in society, which to many seems an orderly arrangement for allowing decent people to get through their lives creditably and with some pleasure, seems mere cannibalism; nay worse… [it] is grown so corrupt, so steeped in hypocrisy and lies, that one turns from one stratum of it with another with hopeless loathing. One must turn to hope, and only in one direction do I see it – on the road to Revolution: everything else is gone now…
My rereading of Thompson’s epic account of the life of William Morris left me with mixed impressions.
Firstly, I feel the author got a little too close to his material: often, more than half of each page is given up to extended quotations from Morris’s writings or other related material. Rather than use a judicious point here and there to prove an interpretation, it’s almost as if Thompson simply lined a thousand or so quotes up in chronological order and then wrote from one to the other.
Secondly, he does prove his point that Morris’s move ‘to revolutionary’ involved his becoming a true exponent of scientific socialism, or communism. However, the time for his actual action in this sphere was relatively short: merely the mid-1800s. The combined police and military attack on ‘Bloody Sunday’ in 1887 seems to have been the high water mark of his involvement, after which his enthusiasm and indeed, his hope, definitely waned.
Thirdly, it was quite dispiriting to see that so much of the development of a true left wing ideology in Britain was forever bedevilled by internal disputes and schisms. Just keeping the Democratic Federation, the Socialist League, the Social Democratic Federation, the Independent Labour Party, the Fabian Society, the Lib-Lab movement and other organizations straight was difficult enough, and Thompson’s efforts to differentiate the anarchist, parliamentary socialist and non-parliamentary Socialist (which included Morris) elements was quite helpful.
The final Appendix takes on several critics of the earlier edition of this same work, and very helpfully develops the concept that Morris was a Communist, a Utopian and a Moralist: all brought together in a relatively new configuration of Marxism. Following Engels’ Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, visionary utopias are normally dismissed by strict Marxists, but Thompson makes a persuasive argument that Morris in fact allowed for a fundamental moral and utopian understanding of the end of the class struggle in a communist world.
Finally, the overwhelming impression is one of fervent idealism and, not surprisingly, general despair. His beauty of a wife did not love him. His friends from the Pre-Raphaelite movement did not follow into him socialist agitation. His period of revolutionary activity was fraught with disagreements, theoretical and personal. Still, he kept his creative energy, whether it was in designing his Kelmscott Press edition of Chaucer or imagining a utopian socialist world as he did in News from Nowhere. His heart was forever fixed on creating something beautiful and satisfying for his fellow men.
One’s disappointments and sadness seem to develop in direct proportion to the extent of one’s imagination and idealism.
Highly recommended.
Original review:
This monumental work takes upon itself the task of describing the life and work of one of the most original figures of late Victorian Britain. A poet, a publisher, a translator, a novelist, a wallpaper designer, a writer of fantasy, a furniture maker and a socialist, William Morris tied together many disparate threads of cultural and political development in his time. To make sense of all these individual enthusiasms is the task Thompson undertook and acquitted himself very well in doing so.
Thompson's major work is The History of the English Working Class, and its truly vibrant prose brought to the story of the development of the industrial proletariat a broadly sympathetic understanding and discerning judgment of the inequities of the time. That he also wrote about William Morris, who blended his artistic temperaments with a fundamental sense of social justice, is no far stretch for Thompson.
Hopefully, I'll find time to reread this work which I plowed through about fifty years ago. I have been rereading a lot of Morris' early fantasies and utopian 'histories', and Thompson's work would blend in nicely with this effort.
Highly recommended.
May 30, 2024
J'avais déjà entendu parler de l'artiste, écrivain et militant socialiste révolutionnaire anglais William Morris. Le fait qu'il soit désormais reconnu comme un "précurseur" de la fantasy, mais aussi ses multiples facettes dont son engagement politique, m'avaient donné envie d'en savoir plus sur lui. J'ai donc fini par lire la biographie que lui avait consacré l'historien E.P. Thomson, d'abord en 1955 puis dans une seconde édition en 1976.
William Morris : Romantic to Revolutionary, le titre suffit normalement à expliquer pourquoi j'ai eu envie de lire cette biographie. Je n'ai pas été déçu, bien au contraire. C'est dense mais c'est une très jolie plongée dans la société victorienne de l'Angleterre du XIXe siècle, dans le mouvement socialiste britannique, et dans la vie d'une personnalité "passionnante et passionnée", comme on dit. Cela m'a donné encore plus envie de lire les oeuvres littéraires de William Morris.
William Morris : Romantic to Revolutionary, le titre suffit normalement à expliquer pourquoi j'ai eu envie de lire cette biographie. Je n'ai pas été déçu, bien au contraire. C'est dense mais c'est une très jolie plongée dans la société victorienne de l'Angleterre du XIXe siècle, dans le mouvement socialiste britannique, et dans la vie d'une personnalité "passionnante et passionnée", comme on dit. Cela m'a donné encore plus envie de lire les oeuvres littéraires de William Morris.
Read
February 13, 2012(notes refer to the 2011 PM Press edition,
Read this 800+ page monster on the beach in mexico...good times...
I've been on a Morris kick recently. This is a biography of Morris that emphasizes his involvement with the English socialist/communist movement. As such, the long section on infighting within the various socialists groups, etc. was not so exciting to me, but in general this book paints a very complete picture of Morris and his thoughts. It is hard to call oneself a communist these days, as people associate this with state socialism (state communism) or else with hippie communes. This book made me a Morris-ist though. Morris's form of socialism/commnism before (he was coopted by the Marxists), is more along the lines of Kropotkin's anarcho-communism, and his vision (described, e.g., in his novel, "News from Nowhere") would be really along the lines of distributivism of Chesterton and Belloc.
Also got me thinking: what would the communist vacation "industry" look like? Probably lots of friend people who would want to show you the town, hike with you through natural wonders, etc. You would cook and clean for yourself.
p. xxv - Alfred the Great
p.29 -Carlyle, "Past and Present"
p.35 - Ruskin's statement on men not being tools, resonance with Tao te Ching & Confucius
p.37 - Ruskin, "No master should be too proud to do the hardest work."
Chpt 4 - Icelandic Sagas in translation by Morris
p.309 - "Over and over again have I asked myself why should not my lot be the common lot. My work is simple work enough; much of it, nor that the least, pleasant, any man of decent intelligence could do. ... Indeed I hae been ashamed when I have thought of the contrast between my happy working hours and the unpraised, unrewarded, monotonous drudgery which most men are condemned to. Nothing shall convince me that such laour as this is good or necessary to civilization.
p. 384 - "We have said, 'Buy this--or take a bayonet in your belly! ' People dont' want the goods we offer them, but they are poor and have to buy something which serve their turn anyhow, so they accept. .. Their own goods, made slowly and ata a grater cost, are driven out of the market and the metamorphosis begin which ends in turning fairly happy barbarians into very miserable half-civilized people surrounded by a fringer of exploiters and middle-men varied in nation but of one religion-'Take care of Number one.'
p.540 - "Signs of Change" (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3053 )
p.552 - H. G. Wells, "Experiment in Autobiography"
p.631 - "Many still think that civilization will grow so speedily and trimmphantly, and production will become so easy and cheap, taht the possessing classes will be able to spare more and more from the great heap f wealth to the producing classes ... A futile hope indeed"
p.641- Great summary
p.756 - John Carruthers, "Communal and Commercial Economy"
p. 793 - How we live, and how we might live
Read this 800+ page monster on the beach in mexico...good times...
I've been on a Morris kick recently. This is a biography of Morris that emphasizes his involvement with the English socialist/communist movement. As such, the long section on infighting within the various socialists groups, etc. was not so exciting to me, but in general this book paints a very complete picture of Morris and his thoughts. It is hard to call oneself a communist these days, as people associate this with state socialism (state communism) or else with hippie communes. This book made me a Morris-ist though. Morris's form of socialism/commnism before (he was coopted by the Marxists), is more along the lines of Kropotkin's anarcho-communism, and his vision (described, e.g., in his novel, "News from Nowhere") would be really along the lines of distributivism of Chesterton and Belloc.
Also got me thinking: what would the communist vacation "industry" look like? Probably lots of friend people who would want to show you the town, hike with you through natural wonders, etc. You would cook and clean for yourself.
p. xxv - Alfred the Great
p.29 -Carlyle, "Past and Present"
p.35 - Ruskin's statement on men not being tools, resonance with Tao te Ching & Confucius
p.37 - Ruskin, "No master should be too proud to do the hardest work."
Chpt 4 - Icelandic Sagas in translation by Morris
p.309 - "Over and over again have I asked myself why should not my lot be the common lot. My work is simple work enough; much of it, nor that the least, pleasant, any man of decent intelligence could do. ... Indeed I hae been ashamed when I have thought of the contrast between my happy working hours and the unpraised, unrewarded, monotonous drudgery which most men are condemned to. Nothing shall convince me that such laour as this is good or necessary to civilization.
p. 384 - "We have said, 'Buy this--or take a bayonet in your belly! ' People dont' want the goods we offer them, but they are poor and have to buy something which serve their turn anyhow, so they accept. .. Their own goods, made slowly and ata a grater cost, are driven out of the market and the metamorphosis begin which ends in turning fairly happy barbarians into very miserable half-civilized people surrounded by a fringer of exploiters and middle-men varied in nation but of one religion-'Take care of Number one.'
p.540 - "Signs of Change" (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3053 )
p.552 - H. G. Wells, "Experiment in Autobiography"
p.631 - "Many still think that civilization will grow so speedily and trimmphantly, and production will become so easy and cheap, taht the possessing classes will be able to spare more and more from the great heap f wealth to the producing classes ... A futile hope indeed"
p.641- Great summary
p.756 - John Carruthers, "Communal and Commercial Economy"
p. 793 - How we live, and how we might live
March 1, 2025
Excellent biography which concentrates on Morris's life from age 50 onwards, at which time he devoted most of his efforts to the cause of socialism. As with other fledgling Marxist political groupings, we see from this history how the movement was undermined by individualist and/or anti-democratic forces - along with all the usual betrayals and outright opposition.
Morris is remembered for interior design but this book reveals his larger role (as he saw it) as a dedicated pioneer and champion of the UK socialist movement in the 1880's and 1890's. The book also describes the earliest days of the ILP and how it was 'lib-lab' and colonialist/imperialist from its inception. The 'Postscript 1976' section, which answers some of the criticisms made between the book's publication & 20 years later, reconciles Morris the romantic with Morris the socialist.
Morris is remembered for interior design but this book reveals his larger role (as he saw it) as a dedicated pioneer and champion of the UK socialist movement in the 1880's and 1890's. The book also describes the earliest days of the ILP and how it was 'lib-lab' and colonialist/imperialist from its inception. The 'Postscript 1976' section, which answers some of the criticisms made between the book's publication & 20 years later, reconciles Morris the romantic with Morris the socialist.
May 21, 2020
I left this enormously comprehensive, 800-page biography feeling, not that Morris was an endlessly fascinating figure whose life I had just begun to study, but that my time with Morris was nearing an end. Even E.P. Thompson, an extraordinary writer, cannot really sell me on a need to repeatedly study Morris' life and work. Morris' political work ended in failure, and as poet and artist he was simply not of the first rank. Thompson's argument is that Morris must be seen in full, and that taking all his work together, we find an essentially quality of 'moral seriousness' that warrants study—essentially Borges' idea that "One of a writer’s most important works—perhaps the most important of all—is the image he leaves of himself in the memory of men, above and beyond the pages he has written." Morris is an admirable man who left a stamp on the moral history of the world, to be sure, but this hardly justifies drudging through hundreds of pages (literally) detailing the history of socialist movement in Britain. There are some pages and anecdotes in which Morris is not even mentioned, and to which he is only tangentially related! I don't even know how I managed to get through it anymore. It is also clear that Thompson's interest in Morris is very political—if you are not interested in that, this book loses a lot of its value. This is Thompson's first book, and it struggles from a common fault of first books: lack of readibility. William Morris: Romantic to Revolutionary is one of the rare cases where I would actually recommend not reading a book cover to cover, but rather seeking out the parts interesting to any one reader. If you do that, this book is easily worth 5 stars.
July 5, 2015
Since I am more interested in William Morris's visual arts theories and activities, and the Arts and Crafts and anti-Scrape movements, and less in the evolution of his politics and his contribution to Britian's socialist movement in the mid- to late 1800s, I was bored to death by the minute detail of this book. It would be of value to political historians and to those who were utterly fascinated by every twist and turn of Morris's mind as he evolved from a "romantic" to a self-described communist (not that the two states are mutually exclusive, as this book amply demonstrates). I would rather have read a detailed description of everything he did during those years that were NOT related to political activism. It's not that I am not interested in politics: I am. But not in reading about the minutiae of meetings and letters and speeches and travels to outposts for speaking engagements which amount to little but lists. The writing itself in this book is boring, which doesn't help. One thing I did discover is that I dislike Morris's creative writing intensely -- it is so dated and "romantic" in the worst manifestations of that term. I'll stick to Morris's artistic work and thinking on that subject in future.
March 19, 2022
This at least has the virtue of being detailed.
E.P. Thompson liked things romantic & English very much, and provided us with a generous understanding of the English Romantics’ Tory elitist hatred of the life-damaging aspects of capitalist society. This criticism came right up to the border of socialism in the work of John Ruskin, Morris’s teacher & lifelong influence. Thompson’s investigation of this connection is a pleasure to read, though he was motivated enough by a “merrie England” agenda of making socialism appear specifically English that he didn’t think through the strengths & shortcomings of this “let’s go back to the Middle Ages” approach with any clarity.
E.P. Thompson was a member of the Stalinist “Communist Party” of Great Britain when he wrote this, & part of their famous Historians Group. He or his party line - or both - absolutely could not stand how advanced the politics of Morris’s faction in the Socialist League were. Line up Morris & his anti-electoral comrades next to other factions of the first generation to call themselves “Marxists”: the antisemitic class-deflationists around Jules Guesde, the personality cult of the shit-tier statist royalist Ferdinand Lasalle, the opportunist clowning of Henry Hyndman. The difference is simply that Morris’s group were emerging into fully-grown communism, and the others weren’t. Yet Thompson portrays every development of Morris’s socialist politics & activities in this 880-page book with unsubstantiated clichéd groaning: Morris’s group were *purists*. They had the gall to criticize (however crudely) the limitations of craft unionism! They refused to engage in reformist agitation which they though (albeit on an inaccurate basis) would lead nowhere! They had members and branches come & go, rather than stuffing themselves with members like the electoralist opportunists around Hyndman! They had some truck with anarchism! The arguments motivating this tireless flogging are only ever barely drawn out. Thompson’s anti-“purism” chestnut finally arrives at this: William Morris’s faction in the Socialist League had the gall not to take part in the event at which the Labour Party was established.
The evidence is here for a serious consideration of the actual strengths & limitations of Morris & co.’s views and actions, but you’re going to have to do it yourself.
E.P. Thompson liked things romantic & English very much, and provided us with a generous understanding of the English Romantics’ Tory elitist hatred of the life-damaging aspects of capitalist society. This criticism came right up to the border of socialism in the work of John Ruskin, Morris’s teacher & lifelong influence. Thompson’s investigation of this connection is a pleasure to read, though he was motivated enough by a “merrie England” agenda of making socialism appear specifically English that he didn’t think through the strengths & shortcomings of this “let’s go back to the Middle Ages” approach with any clarity.
E.P. Thompson was a member of the Stalinist “Communist Party” of Great Britain when he wrote this, & part of their famous Historians Group. He or his party line - or both - absolutely could not stand how advanced the politics of Morris’s faction in the Socialist League were. Line up Morris & his anti-electoral comrades next to other factions of the first generation to call themselves “Marxists”: the antisemitic class-deflationists around Jules Guesde, the personality cult of the shit-tier statist royalist Ferdinand Lasalle, the opportunist clowning of Henry Hyndman. The difference is simply that Morris’s group were emerging into fully-grown communism, and the others weren’t. Yet Thompson portrays every development of Morris’s socialist politics & activities in this 880-page book with unsubstantiated clichéd groaning: Morris’s group were *purists*. They had the gall to criticize (however crudely) the limitations of craft unionism! They refused to engage in reformist agitation which they though (albeit on an inaccurate basis) would lead nowhere! They had members and branches come & go, rather than stuffing themselves with members like the electoralist opportunists around Hyndman! They had some truck with anarchism! The arguments motivating this tireless flogging are only ever barely drawn out. Thompson’s anti-“purism” chestnut finally arrives at this: William Morris’s faction in the Socialist League had the gall not to take part in the event at which the Labour Party was established.
The evidence is here for a serious consideration of the actual strengths & limitations of Morris & co.’s views and actions, but you’re going to have to do it yourself.
October 6, 2020
Long but informative
An in depth examination of Morris' politics and how he worked to support socialism. A good read if you like the history of ideas.
An in depth examination of Morris' politics and how he worked to support socialism. A good read if you like the history of ideas.
September 23, 2025
An amazing person. I finished the book feeling melancholy that he lived and that there will never be another person quite like him.
September 6, 2016
Insightful and brilliant. There are several moments throughout the book when we are no longer reading about Morris’ life, or trying to make something practical of his thought, but rather probing into Thompson’s own interpretation of it in a way that is both deliberately subjective and really enriching. I was absolutely absorbed by the latter’s enthusiasm and dedication to his subject. Thompson’s assumptions are never final, conclusive, contained in themselves. In the years that follow his first edition, he himself will submit his concepts and conclusions to a thorough revaluation and – sometimes – redefinition. What I love most about this book (which is not so much a biography, but more like a collection of “linked essays” that point towards a multi-chaptered conclusion) is that we can perfectly tell where “Morris” ends and “Thompson himself” begins. And they are both extraordinary thinkers.
February 27, 2009
A splendid, comprehensive biographical study of this great English artist, poet, and revolutionary--balanced, compassionate, admiring without being hagiographic. It includes a brilliant meditation on the function of utopia drawn from the work of Michel Abensour. One of Thompson's greatest early works.
Want to read
December 12, 2011So far so good, the "Into" is a little hard to get through.. so I skipped it. The actual biography is wonderful. A tome of a book, definitely a book for a season.
And... I've hit the pause button on this one for a while.
And... I've hit the pause button on this one for a while.
April 19, 2012
I read parts of this for a research paper I wrote about William Morris for my nineteenth-century European history class. This book is one that I'll probably revisit at some point so I can read it in entirety.
February 22, 2008
e.p. thompson's first book. a political life of william morris, the great voice in the wilderness against the "shoddiness" of modern life.
Currently reading
June 8, 2017pp 26-7
The term ‘romance’ and the opposition between ‘romance’ and ‘realism’ is confusing rather than helpful. Romance, a specialized form of literature in which an imaginary world with its own laws is created, only distantly related to the world of living experience, has little or nothing in common with Blake’s songs, or Wordsworth’s lyrics, Keat’s Odes, Shelley’s Masque of Anarchy or The Defence of Guenevere. Moreover, even the word romantic has unfortunate associations today, suggesting high-flown idealism at odds with reality,or excessive dramatization of the passions and sentiments.
The term ‘romance’ and the opposition between ‘romance’ and ‘realism’ is confusing rather than helpful. Romance, a specialized form of literature in which an imaginary world with its own laws is created, only distantly related to the world of living experience, has little or nothing in common with Blake’s songs, or Wordsworth’s lyrics, Keat’s Odes, Shelley’s Masque of Anarchy or The Defence of Guenevere. Moreover, even the word romantic has unfortunate associations today, suggesting high-flown idealism at odds with reality,or excessive dramatization of the passions and sentiments.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews