Customer Reviews (3)

What a wonderful book
I truly do not understand the criticism of these other reviews I've seen here. It simply makes me think most people ought not to write reviews or that they never really read the book.

My mother-in-law dropped this book off yesterday and I am completely captivated. I've read works by William Morris (and if you want to know what his ideas were that is what you should read, because they were abundant, detailed and encompassed many subjects - far more plentiful than a book about him can contain), but this is the first book I've read that attempted to deliver the man himself, within his environment and time. This it does, beautifully, caringly and not only with an abundance of gorgeous illustrations but in fine prose. In explaining how someone could be so incredibly productive as was William Morris Burdick writes, toward the end of this explanation:

"For motivation, situate him in a vital and turbulent era in which opposing forces vie to determine the direction of a culture. For support, surround him with a fraternity of like-minded; an idealistic brotherhod inspired as much by their contempt for the way things are as by their passion for the way things might be. To prevent complacency, endow him with a a sensitive conscience that will not let him rest and will spur him on endlessly to new enterprises and frontiers. Through it all, feed him well. Voila, William Morris.

The book is a wonderful work and anyone who actually cares about Morris and the transformations of his time, the rise of the Arts & Crafts movement and beauty and art in the things around us will value this book highly. I can't imagine how it could be better.
Keith Davitt

I was trying to find how to contact Mr. Burdick to thank him when I came across these reviews and had to stop and give my mind.

Well, I did the best I could under the circumstances.
Rose, don't you have better things to do than slag coffee table books? As I recall, I had about 2 to 3 months to research and write that thing, and I did it for what would work out to be an hourly wage considerably less than the minimum. Hey, it's not the publisher's fault. I knew what I was signing on for.

Of course it doesn't do justice to Morris' politics, Rose! It is a book about pretty designs after all. There are plenty of good scholarly books out there about his socialism, ones that don't even mention his tapestries, wallpapers, poetry, or chairs.I thought I did a pretty good job of tracing the development of, and the contradictions inherent in, his artistic philsophy, his debt to Ruskin, the Rossetti soap opera, and so on.

Ah well. Believe me, the Morris book is a fair bit better than my book on colonial houses. That one was quite deft in the way it avoided the subjects of architecture and design altogteher. I can get you a copy cheap, Rose, if you'd care to review it too.

William Morris: phony or artist? Yes.
An interesting subject, and great illustrations/photos, but not really well written. A lot of referring to Morris's ideas about art and politics, without robustly stating what they were.

Morris himself is a very ambiguous figure -- a born-to-wealth socialist who never gave up his comforts and servants, even while he grew more and more theoretically radical. As for his art,and design, it was supposedly based on the desire to beautify the lives of the masses, but was overwhelmingly marketed to the wealthy bourgeoisie. He articulated an abhorrence of Victorian fustiness and mindless worship of the past, but there is something precious and fake about his idolatry of romantic medievalism.

But, finally, he was a terrific designer -- the wallpaper, chintzes, typefaces -- and a prolific do-er, not just theorizing but producing a phenomenal amount and breadth of work. ... Read more

Product Description
"Have nothing in your house which you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful."-William Morris

William Morris's wallpaper, carpets, and other textile designs are as popular today as they were when he created them in the late 1880s. One of the most influential figures in the history of the decorative arts, Morris (1834- 1896) challenged the mass-production methods of the industrial revolution and launched the revival of handcrafted work that became known as the Arts and Crafts movement. His firm, Morris & Co, created wood furniture, hand-woven tapestries, embroideries, printed textiles, woven fabrics, stained glass, tiles, and block-printed wallpapers, many of which are still being produced-by the same methods-more than a century later.

This new book shows how to incorporate Morris's designs and theories into contemporary interiors. Carefully chosen photographs show a wide variety of rooms using Morris designs, and include details of individual textile and wallpaper patterns. Inspired by nature and featuring soft, pure colors, Morris's designs are classics, still relevant and stylish in today's interiors. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Beautiful photographs........
I did not purchase this book, but I did check it out from my library. I have to say that this is a great book displaying William Morris' textile and wallpaper designs in contemporary settings.

I have seen books that use William Morris' designs and the rooms are not fresh, but look dated. You won't find that in this book. The photos are rich in detail and gives readers great decorating ideas.

If you are a collector of William Morris' wallpapers or fabrics, or if you love beautiful interiors that blend contemporary with traditional, then I think you will enjoy this book. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The Best of Both Worlds
Faulkner's Mississippi

With excerpts from Sanctuary, The Faulkner Reader, As I Lay Dying, The Unvanquished, Light in August, Essays, Go Down, Moses; Absalom, Absalom!; and the exceptional writing style of editor/novelist Willie Morris, this work reveals the textures of Faulkner's Mississippi--cultural, linguistic, and social--making an exceptional commentary on southern life. Morris accomplishes the task of seizing and capturing the imagination of the reader. This image is heightened by the stark, often haunting photographs of Eggleston which combines the reality of Mississippi's landscape with an almost spiritual journey through Faulkner's mystical Yoknapatawpha County.

Morris, who served as writer-in-residence at the University of Mississippe (Ole Miss), has allowed the reader to visualize a southern way of life which is non-existent in many Mississippi communities. From the smell of corn liquor, fried chicken and hush puppies to the sounds of choral music and the clamour of University students and fall football, the reader is gently nudged from one scene to yet another.

Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha which extends from the Tallahatchie River to the north and the Yocona (patawpha) to the south, leaving its eastern and western boundaries to the readers imagination, encompasses the modern day town of Oxford, a center of intellectual achievement and southern hospitality. Named for the famous English University, this town possesses a remarkable and diverse culture. At it's epicenter stands the Lafayette County Courthouse: an imposing, white structure encircled by wizened oaks. From its deeply shaded benches old men relive past ventures or simply watch the city's comings and goings. A mile west of the Courthouse Square one encounters the youthful vigor of the University of Mississippi. This artfully landscaped campus has, during its history, weathered both Civil War and civil strife. All this and much more are revealed by Eggleston's photographic endeavours.

Although a little expensive, this work is a needed addition for any photographer, historian, or southern culture buff who dreams of a beauty and style which is nearly forgotten but which can be re-lived within the page of Faulkner's Mississippi.

by Dr. Carl Edwin Lindgren
COPYRIGHT 1991 Photographic Society of America, Inc.

... Read more

Product Description
The book may have numerous typos or missing text. It is not illustrated or indexed. However, purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original rare book from the publisher's website. You can also preview the book there.Purchasers are also entitled to a trial membership in the publisher's book club where they can select from more than a million books for free.Original Publisher: Longmans, Green and company Publication date: 1911Subjects: Literary Criticism / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh; Literary Criticism / Poetry; Poetry / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh ... Read more

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Product Description
For thousands of years humans have adorned themselves. Adornment figures among the constellation of traits that signify the arrival of modern human behavior in the archaeological record. Wherever they ventured, wherever they lived, people have made art and adornments to accompany them in life and death.

In this book, artist William Morris celebrates this ancient and universal human quality and continues his exploration of the themes of origin and myth that permeate all his work. At first glance, these glass sculptures signal a striking departure from Morris's oeuvre of canopic jars, animal vessels, assorted artifacts, and imaginative burial installations. Here Morris depicts the people only imagined before. He has put flesh on the bones, and covered the bodies with costumes, jewelry, headdresses, and tattoos. These figures spring forth full of vibrant life in the present, rather than recalling a distant past. The faces and artifacts evoke and sometimes blend elements of Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas, tracing the global migrations of distant ancestors. Morris aims less for realism than for an essence of ethnicity.

For more than 20 years, in a career that has brought Morris to the forefront of the modern Studio Glass movement, he has perfected a repertoire of techniques that virtually no other American glass artist can equal. ... Read more

Product Description
The research that underpins this study began in 1989, and it comes from libraries and private collections from five countries on three continents, Australia, North America, and Europe, and the libraries used, cited in the List of Abbreviations and in the various entries, number fifty-two, the private collections seven. The major accomplishment of the book, however, lies not in its many sources but in the way its parts are fitted together to form a picture of a major writer's work. ... Read more

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Although William Morris Hunt (1824-1879) is included in all standard surveys of American art, this is the first modern study of the influential Boston painter who played a leading role during an important watershed period in American art. Little examined, this era (1850-1880) witnessed the decline of the nativist school of landscape painting and the emergence of a new aesthetic introduced by successive generations of European-trained artists who sought to bring more emotion and painterly expression to this country's art. Members of this generation included John La Farge, Elihu Vedder, Franck Duveneck, George Fuller, George Inness, William Merritt Chase, and Albert Pinkham Ryder, many of whom Hunt encouraged during their early careers. Hunt, himself, worked in many modes - sculpture, genre, portraiture, lithography - and at the end of his life made a lasting contribution to the fields of American landscape and mural painting. Hunt was also the author of the well-known Talks on Art (1875). Conceived as a compendium of his classroom instructions, it is in fact a passionate account of his views on art and artists. Today, Hunt's ideas and influence are better known than his paintings. The many illustrations included in this volume, a number of which have never been published before (including important studies for his now lost Albany murals), deepen our understanding of this gifted teacher and highly regarded painter. ... Read more

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Through his work and his words, this book traces the progress of the most influential British designer of the last 100 years, combining Morris's writings with his famous designs for wallpapers, fabrics, tapestries, embroideries, carpets, books, and stained glass. Includes over 200 color photographs of Morris's work, many of which are shown here for the first time in color. ... Read more

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Up at the League, says a friend, there had been one night a brisk conversational discussion, as to what would happen on the Morrow of the Revolution, finally shading off into a vigorous statement by various friends of their views on the future of the fully-developed new society.

Says our friend: Considering the subject, the discussion was good- tempered; for those present being used to public meetings and after- lecture debates, if they did not listen to each others' opinions (which could scarcely be expected of them), at all events did not always attempt to speak all together, as is the custom of people in ordinary polite society when conversing on a subject which interests them. For the rest, there were six persons present, and consequently six sections of the party were represented, four of which had strong but divergent Anarchist opinions. One of the sections, says our friend, a man whom he knows very well indeed, sat almost silent at the beginning of the discussion, but at last got drawn into it, and finished by roaring out very loud, and damning all the rest for fools; after which befel a period of noise, and then a lull, during which the aforesaid section, having said good-night very amicably, took his way home by himself to a western suburb, using the means of travelling which civilisation has forced upon us like a habit. As he sat in that vapour-bath of hurried and discontented humanity, a carriage of the underground railway, he, like others, stewed discontentedly, while in self-reproachful mood he turned over the many excellent and conclusive arguments which, though they lay at his fingers' ends, he had forgotten in the just past discussion. But this frame of mind he was so used to, that it didn't last him long, and after a brief discomfort, caused by disgust with himself for having lost his temper (which he was also well used to), he found himself musing on the subject-matter of discussion, but still discontentedly and unhappily. "If I could but see a day of it," he said to himself; "if I could but see it!"

As he formed the words, the train stopped at his station, five minutes' walk from his own house, which stood on the banks of the Thames, a little way above an ugly suspension bridge. He went out of the station, still discontented and unhappy, muttering "If I could but see it! if I could but see it!" but had not gone many steps towards the river before (says our friend who tells the story) all that discontent and trouble seemed to slip off him.

It was a beautiful night of early winter, the air just sharp enough to be refreshing after the hot room and the stinking railway carriage. The wind, which had lately turned a point or two north of west, had blown the sky clear of all cloud save a light fleck or two which went swiftly down the heavens. There was a young moon halfway up the sky, and as the home-farer caught sight of it, tangled in the branches of a tall old elm, he could scarce bring to his mind the shabby London suburb where he was, and he felt as if he were in a pleasant country place--pleasanter, indeed, than the deep country was as he had known it.

He came right down to the river-side, and lingered a little, looking over the low wall to note the moonlit river, near upon high water, go swirling and glittering up to Chiswick Eyot: as for the ugly bridge below, he did not notice it or think of it, except when for a moment (says our friend) it struck him that he missed the row of lights down stream. Then he turned to his house door and let himself in; and even as he shut the door to, disappeared all remembrance of that brilliant logic and foresight which had so illuminated the recent discussion; and of the discussion itself there remained no trace, save a vague hope, that was now become a pleasure, for days of peace and rest, and cleanness and smiling goodwill.



Download News From Nowhere Now! ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

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engaging designs, meticulously adapted from patterns created by influential Victorian artist and craftsman for fabrics, wall hangings, carpets, and other decorative projects, depict lovely florals and vines, exotic birds amid displays of lush garden flowers, perky daffodils and much more—all artfully displayed in circular, oval, and rectangular frames and easily adaptable as templates.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Showcase the "art" in Arts & Crafts Tile
The authors take their experience in British tile and present an indepth analysis of the work of William Morris. Although well-known for his other products, the authors bring the overshadowed tile work to light in text and pictures.

Although collectors will not be able to add most of the picturend pieces to their collection, the book can be. Unlike many books geared toward collectors, this book showcases many installation, many of which are in abbeys, and English manor homes. It is definitely not a "my collection book."

The indepth analysis of the artists who worked for Wm Morris should hold some information to even knowledgeable collectors ... Read more

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A critical analysis of the tactical and ethical difficulties of English communist propaganda of the 1930s and 1950s. Discussing the relations between nationalism, rhetoric and revolution, this text shows how the English legacy of William Morris was appropriated in the interests of political forces seeking hegemonic power. The author argues that Conservative claimants disseminated Morris's aesthetic oeuvre readily, declaring it the embodiment of English sensibility. Communists, however, struggled to retain Morris's Englishness while promoting his political doctrine. Weinroth demonstrates that these peripheral ideologes were caught in a paradox: they could not grip the masses without the aesthetic appeal of Englishness, but Englishness was imbued with the very imperialism that they abhorred. Theirs was a propaganda strained by the conflict between political dissent and ruling-class cultural forms. Moving through theoretical, historical and exegetical analyses of propagandist texts, this work brings out the aesthetic underpinnings of nationalist ideology.Combining the philosophical substance of Karl Marx, Georg Lukacs, Antonio Gramsci and Ernst Bloch with Kantian aesthetics, Weinroth constructs a conceptual apparatus that explains the impassioned yet decidedly marginal rhetoric of early 20th-century English communism. ... Read more

Product Description
This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishings Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the worlds literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

Product Description
With an introduction by May Morris.This Elibron Classics book is a facsimile reprint of a 1911 edition by Longmans, Green, and Company, London, New York, Bombay, Calcutta. ... Read more