William Morris

News from Nowhere; or, An Epoch of Rest. Being Some Chapters from a Utopian Romance

Hammersmith, England: The Kelmscott Press, 1892

NYPL, Rare Books Division

In William Morris's utopian novel, a man named William Guest awakens one morning after a troubled sleep to find himself in a place completely unlike the industrial London of the nineteenth century, where he fell asleep. As he explores this clean, prosperous place, he discovers a society of youthful people who are happy, energetic, free from want, and, most important, engaged in work for the pure pleasure of serving others and expressing their own creativity. Morris's "Nowhere" reflects his own socialist and anti-industrialist points of view and depicts a post-revolutionary society free of class division, formal education, governmental structures, money, poverty, crime, and industrial pollution.

This edition of News from Nowhere was printed by Morris at his Kelmscott Press in Hammersmith, and reflects Morris's highly decorative style of book design. The frontispiece depicts Kelmscott Manor, where Morris lived and where the character of William Guest finds himself at the end of his adventures.
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