William Morris on Socialism

Presents the first extended collection of new William Morris essays in several decades

• Gathers a selection of Morris's essays from manuscripts, newspapers and long out-of-print sources
• Follows Morris’s development from a youthful art reformer and anti-imperialist through his years as a skilled political theorist and widely influential pan-socialist presence
• Adds to our understanding of Morris’s views on competition, war, violence, social justice and the need to protect our natural environment

William Morris’s socialist essays remain uncannily relevant for our time, as he addresses issues of inequality, precarity, and the need for pleasure and creative fulfilment in work and life. This scholarly edition traces Morris’s opinions from his early insistence that all must have access to art in its broadest sense, through his years as a leader and theorist of the nascent British socialist movement. Finally, as Morris became the elder statesman of the socialist/labour cause, these writings demonstrate his efforts to reconcile competing factions in the service of common aims.