Item #129810 The Story of the Glittering Plain, which has been also called the Land of Living Men or the Acre of the Undying. Written by William Morris. Kelmscott Press, William MORRIS.
The Story of the Glittering Plain, which has been also called the Land of Living Men or the Acre of the Undying. Written by William Morris
The Story of the Glittering Plain, which has been also called the Land of Living Men or the Acre of the Undying. Written by William Morris
The Story of the Glittering Plain, which has been also called the Land of Living Men or the Acre of the Undying. Written by William Morris
The Story of the Glittering Plain, which has been also called the Land of Living Men or the Acre of the Undying. Written by William Morris
The Story of the Glittering Plain, which has been also called the Land of Living Men or the Acre of the Undying. Written by William Morris

The Story of the Glittering Plain, which has been also called the Land of Living Men or the Acre of the Undying. Written by William Morris

London, Printed by William Morris at the Kelmscott Press, 1894 (second Kelmscott edition)/ 1891.

Quarto, [iv], 179 pages printed on Perch paper in red and black in Troy and Chaucer types, with 23 woodcut illustrations by Walter Crane (engraved by A. Leverett) and with elaborate wood-engraved title page, borders and initials.

Full limp vellum with blue-grey silk ties, lettered in gilt on the spine; covers a trifle marked; essentially a fine copy.

One of only 250 copies on paper (a further seven copies were printed on vellum). This is the second edition, and the first to contain the illustrations by Walter Crane.

'When he was planning the first Kelmscott volume, "The Story of the Glittering Plain", Morris hit upon the notion of enlisting the services of his friend, Walter Crane, a fellow-socialist and one of the leading illustrators in Victorian England. In the autumn of 1890 he wrote out a formal proposal specifying that "The illustrations [are] to be drawn by Walter Crane, & cut on wood by Mr Leverett or others to Walter Crane[']s satisfaction." It was agreed that they would share any profits from the book, an arrangement Morris never again offered to an illustrator. But Morris was so impatient to get his first title into print that he was unwilling to wait for Crane's designs, and "The Glittering Plain" was issued in 1891 in unillustrated form; to atone for his haste, Morris published another version of "The Glittering Plain" at the Kelmscott Press in 1894 with Crane's pictures' (Peterson, pages 154-6).

Peterson A22; Sparling 22.

Item #129810

Sold