{\b William Morris}.

{\b Date of Birth}. : 24 March 1834

{\b Date of Death}.: 3 October 1896

{\b Works}.

English poet, translator, essayist, publisher and printer. His first published 
work was The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems (1858). He achieved success 
as a poet with a romantic narrative, The Life and Death of Jason. He wrote a 
series of narrative poems collected in The Earthly Paradise (1868). His 
principal achievement is considered to be the epic Story of Sigurd the Volsung 
and the Fall of the Niblungs (1876), influenced by the Old Norse sagas. Among 
his best romances are A Dream of John Ball (1886) and News from Nowhere 
(1890). Underrated as a poet, he is remembered more as a designer and craftsman.

{\b Featured Works}.

'Two Red Roses Across the Moon', 'Love is Enough', 'The Haystack in the 
Floods', 'April', 'October', 'The Eve of Crecy', 'In Prison', 'Summer Dawn', 
'Near Avalon', 'Shameful Death', 'November'.

{\b General Comment}.

William Morris was born in Essex and educated at Exeter College, Oxford. He 
was the founding editor of the Oxford and Cambridge Magazine (1856) in which 
many of his early poems appear. He was a practising painter (1857-62) and 
public lecturer on art, architecture and socialism (1877-96). He founded the 
Kelmscott Press, Hammersmith, in 1890 and was a founding member the same year 
of the Hammersmith Socialist Society. He helped found the Society for the 
Protection of Ancient Buildings (1877) which he served as secretary. His 
designs in things like furniture and fabrics contributed to the Arts and 
Crafts Movement and changed Victorian taste. He was president of the 
Birmingham Society of Arts and master of the Art Workers Guild. He found time 
to produce literary works and early influences on him included the 
Pre-Raphaelites, Ruskin, Carlyle and Rosetti. He declined a position as a 
poetry professor at Oxford. A social and moral critic, he gave his first 
public lecture in 1887 and formed the Socialist league. He died, worn out by 
his various activities, and was buried at Kelmscott.