When we think of William Morris today, probably the first thing that comes to mind is the wallpaper to which he lends his name. And why not? “Strawberry Thief,” “African Marigold,” “Willow,” “Windrush”—the designs of Morris & Co., most of which are still commercially available, are among the glories of interior decoration, ranking with Iznik tiles of the sixteenth century for their combination of sumptuousness and restraint. But Morris had a mind-boggling range of interests and talents, and a level of energy to match.
Morris was a prominent figure on the artistic and literary scene in London when Yeats was getting his start, and the poet might have had Morris in mind when he wrote, “Some burn damp faggots, others may consume/ The entire combustible world in one small room . . . ” Another great Victorian, Thomas Carlyle, might have been thinking of Morris when he wrote “Blessed is the man who has found his work.” As Fiona MacCarthy writes in her magnificent 1995 biography: “When Morris was dying, at age sixty-two, one of his physicians diagnosed his disease as ‘simply being William Morris, and having done more work than most ten men.’”
Morris was a maker. In him, all the knowledge of the connoisseur combined with a craftsman’s practical urge to learn how things are fashioned. Whenever any art or craft attracted his enormous curiosity, he found out how it was made—from weaving to experimenting with dyes for his tapestries to learning how medieval
