Here at the library at Kelmscott House we’re picking up speed again with the cataloguing project after last year’s building work.
The William Morris Society library has about 3,000 books, articles and other material all about the life and influences of Morris on his contemporaries and in the years since his death.
The collection contains editions of Morris’s own works – poetry, literature, lectures, political writings, translations of Icelandic sagas and his letters – and material on all other aspects of Morrisian studies including art, architecture, design, textiles, wallpaper, stained glass, printing, philosophy, politics and socialism.
We have biographies of Morris and his circle, including Edward Burne-Jones, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and John Ruskin and collections of the Society’s publications.
We are also cataloguing our archive collections and these include papers of the Women’s Guild of Arts, correspondence from the Kelmscott Fellowship and the Society’s own papers from its beginnings in 1955.
The library is open to members and others for reference and we welcome students and researchers. Later in the year the catalogue should be searchable via our website but, until then, we are happy to help visitors find the right material. We can also help with enquiries, for example – is that beautiful window in your local church a product of Morris & Co.? We’ll try and track it down for you.
So if you’d like to find out more, please contact us at library@williammorrissociety.co.uk to make an appointment to use our collections and we’ll be happy to do some research for you.