The Kelmscott Press: History, Books and Legacy

What the Kelmscott Press was

The Kelmscott Press was Morris's own publishing venture. The Victoria and Albert Museum records that he set it up in 1891, in a building a minute's walk from his home in Hammersmith, and that he was already a well-respected writer producing translations, novels, essays and poetry before he founded it. The press was the point where his writing career and his design practice met.

That combination matters. Morris had spent decades designing wallpapers, textiles and furnishings, and had written and translated extensively. The V&A's account treats the press as the culmination of both strands of his working life, the writer's and the designer's.

For readers new to Morris, the press sits late in his career. A fuller account of his life and other work is in the main Morris guide, which covers the decades before the press opened.

Key facts at a glance

The table below gathers the core figures for the press. Each row traces to the Victoria and Albert Museum's published account, which is the single institutional source for the founding date and the output figures on this page.

Two figures stand out. According to the Victoria and Albert Museum, the press published 66 titles in the five years until Morris's death in 1896, a steady rate of production for a private press, yet the museum's figure of 22,068 copies in total is small by commercial standards. Both facts shape the story that follows: a working press with real output, run at a deliberately limited scale.

The long preparation: calligraphy, magazines and the Commonweal

The press founded in 1891, according to the Victoria and Albert Museum, did not appear from nowhere.

The earliest strand was editorial. In 1856, in his early 20s, Morris edited the Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, and the V&A notes that this work brought him into contact with Charles Whittingham of the Chiswick Press. That contact gave Morris practical knowledge of printing at a formative age, long before he ran a press of his own.

The second strand was calligraphic. Morris's experiments in calligraphy during the 1870s, according to the V&A, taught him about letter shapes, the decoration and illustration of text pages, the use of space and the control of margins. These are precisely the problems a book designer faces, and Morris worked through them by hand before he ever set type.

The third strand was managerial. In 1885 Morris became editor and publisher of Commonweal, the official journal of the Socialist League. By the time he founded the press in 1891, again per the museum's account, he had edited, designed and managed printed work. The press brought all three kinds of knowledge together.

A definite claim to beauty: Morris's aims and design principles

Morris set out to print books hoping some would have a definite claim to beauty, in words recorded by the Victoria and Albert Museum. The phrase is the one surviving statement on this page in Morris's own words about the press.

The model Morris looked to was historical. The V&A records that he sought to recreate the rich visual texture he admired in books printed in the second half of the 15th century, the earliest decades of European printing. His books borrow that density of page: type, initials, borders and illustration working together as one composition.

Density had its cost. The V&A notes that Morris was committed to balancing his love of medieval style with readability, although the Kelmscott type style looks very dense to modern eyes. That observation is the museum's framing rather than a contemporary judgement, and it is a fair warning to anyone opening a Kelmscott book for the first time: the pages ask more of the reader than a modern trade book does.

Morris also had clear ideas, again per the V&A, about margins, about the integration of illustrations with text, and about the right paper for each book. These were not afterthoughts. In his practice a book was a single designed object, and the choice of paper or the width of a margin carried the same weight as the choice of typeface.

Typefaces, borders and the books as designed objects

On the museum's account, the designed object extended across the whole page: nothing in a Kelmscott book was left to a stock solution.

This is the practical working out of the aims described earlier on this page. The margins, the integration of illustration with text and the choice of paper that the V&A lists among Morris's concerns all had to be decided in advance, and the museum's account presents the typefaces, borders and ornaments as the result of those decisions. A closer look at Kelmscott borders shows how these elements work on the page, and the typefaces themselves are examined in detail in the guide to Kelmscott typefaces.

Illustration and collaboration: Burne-Jones and the engravers

Morris did not draw the press's illustrations himself. The Victoria and Albert Museum notes that he relied on other people to design illustrations because he was conscious of his limitations as a figurative artist. Major illustration contributions came from Edward Burne-Jones, who collaborated with Morris, according to the museum.

One documented example shows how this collaboration worked in practice. The Victoria and Albert Museum records a Golden Legend wood engraving designed by William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones, engraved by William Harcourt Hooper and printed by the Kelmscott Press in 1892 in England. The museum holds the work under numbers E.1783-1920, E.1784-1920 and E.1782-1920. The record names three separate roles: two designers, one engraver and the press as printer.

Running a press as a business

The Kelmscott Press was not run as an amateur venture. According to the Victoria and Albert Museum, Morris was focused on making the press commercially viable, since profit earned him freedom to work as he wanted. The museum also records that good marketing and relationships with booksellers, collectors and librarians ensured impressive sales, with most editions subscribed in advance.

The commercial picture fits the output figures set out earlier. The V&A gives a total of 22,068 copies across the press's 66 titles, and notes that most editions were subscribed in advance.

What the records establish, and what they do not

History pages are more useful when they say where the evidence runs out. The account on this page rests on a small number of sources, and several natural questions cannot be answered from them. The list below sets out the limits plainly.

The documented limits of this account:

• The Golden Legend is the only Kelmscott Press book title named in the evidence used here, in the Victoria and Albert Museum's record of the wood engraving, so this page cannot list others.
• The evidence preserves no statement by Morris about the press beyond the quoted phrase about a definite claim to beauty.
• No source in the evidence disputes any Kelmscott Press fact, so no disputed facts can be identified from the material used on this page.

These gaps are not reasons to doubt what is stated above. They mark where deeper research would be needed, for example into the press's day-to-day staffing or its full title list, before this page could say more.

Legacy in British book design

The Victoria and Albert Museum's judgement on the press is that its clearly stated design principles influenced later typographers and secured the Kelmscott Press a significant place in the history of British book design. That is the museum's interpretation, and it is stated here as such. The claim rests on the principles themselves, the ones set out earlier on this page: designed typefaces, integrated illustration, considered margins and the right paper.

The legacy also belongs to Morris's wider identity. The V&A describes him as a well-respected writer of translations, novels, essays and poetry who went on to set up his own publishing company. The press was not a hobby attached to a design career; it was the publishing arm of a working writer, and its books carried his own texts alongside medieval translations and contemporary poetry.

Seen that way, the press closes the circle of Morris's working life. The writer from the 1850s magazine, the calligrapher of the 1870s and the manager of the Commonweal all reappear in the books the press produced during its five active years, from its founding in 1891 until Morris's death in 1896, as dated by the Victoria and Albert Museum. The main Morris guide places the press within the full arc of his career, from the early years through the decorative work and the political campaigning.

Where to go next within the Kelmscott story

This page is the hub for the Kelmscott cluster. The articles below take individual parts of the story further.

Continue with:

• The Kelmscott Chaucer: the making of the press's most famous book, from planning to completion.
• Borders and initials of the Kelmscott Press: the ornamental framework Morris designed for his pages.
• Golden, Troy and Chaucer: the Kelmscott Press typefaces: how the press's three typefaces were designed and used.
• William Morris Original Designs: a collection of works connected to Morris's own designs.

If you arrived here from a general interest in Morris rather than in printing, the biography page is the better starting point, and it links back to this press history where the two stories meet.