The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer

…variant of Troy, in which The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer was printed during the last years of Morris’s life. One of the greatest examples of the art of the printed book, Chaucer is the most ornate of the Kelmscott publications. Most of the other Kelmscott books were plain and simple,…

…masterwork is the ambitious 556-page The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer. Four years in the making, the Kelmscott Chaucer has 87 woodcut illustrations from drawings by renowned artist Edward Burne-Jones. For the single work, Morris designed 14 large borders, 18 smaller frames for the illustrations, and over 200 initial letters and…

…Press’s major book was its Chaucer, finished in 1896, a sumptuous folio whose rich decorations and strong black pages are reminiscent of the German incunabula Morris admired. A table book, meant to be looked at rather than read, it is one of the most influential books in the history of…