Collection: William Morris

In addition to designing textiles, such as wallpaper and stained glass, William Morris is credited with being the progenitor of modern fantasy. He was an outspoken proponent of socialism and vastly contributed to the revival of traditional British textile arts and methods of production. His love of medieval art and literature is exemplified in his poetry and works of romantic fantasy. Along with designing decorative fonts for publication, he also produced translations of the Icelandic Sagas, and his was one of the first modern-English translations of Beowulf. While authors before him wrote fantastical tales, these were all set in dream worlds, the future, or foreign lands. Morris set multiple novels in entirely fictionalized lands, which he invented. He wrote in the style of medieval romances, and was influential for later fantasy writers, such as J.R.R. Tolkien.