KELSMSCOTT PRESS: Morris, William. News from Nowhere: or, an Epoch of Rest, Being Some Chapters from a Utopian Romance. Woodcut frontispiece, title page, and initials. 8vo, gilt-lettered vellum with green cloth ties, one of 300 copies.

News from Nowhere (1890) is a classic work combining utopian socialism and soft science fiction written by the artist, designer and socialist pioneer William Morris. In the book, the narrator, William Guest, falls asleep after returning from a meeting of the Socialist League and awakes to find himself in a future society based on common ownership and democratic control of the means of production. In this society there is no private property, no big cities, no authority, no monetary system, no divorce, no courts, no prisons, and no class systems. This agrarian society functions simply because the people find pleasure in nature, and therefore they find pleasure in their work.

Not only is the text a definitive description of the Arts and Crafts movement, but the Kelmscott edition is the embodiment of Arts and Crafts aesthetic ideals as visualized by the Movement’s primary founder, William Morris.