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Were can i find pics of William Morris an a time line of his life and work and poems?

please not the most abvious answers like the first few lines from a google serach please and not from things i have to buy thank you

English craftsman, poet, and early socialist, whose designs generated the Arts and Crafts Movement in the later half of the1900th century. Morris encouraged to return to handmade objects and rejected standard tastes. He was associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and a close friend of the painter-poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his sister Christina Rossetti, also a poet.

"If you want a golden rule that will fit everybody, this is it: Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe tom be beautiful." (from 'The Beauty of Life', 1880)
William Morris was born in Walthamstow, Greater London, as the son of a successful business man. He attended Marlborough College in 1848-51 and in 1853 he entered Exeter College, Oxford, where he met Edward Burne-Jones and Charles Faulkner. Morris thought for a while of taking Holy Orders, but he renounced the Church, and after taking his B.A. in 1856 Morris began his studies in architecture. Morris's early poems were published in The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine - he also financed the publication. In 1858 Morris worked with Rossetti, Burne-Jones, and others on the frescoes in the Oxford Union. He published THE DEFENCE OF GUENEVERE AND OTHER POEMS (1858), which contains much of his best work, including 'The Haystack in the Floods', 'Concerning Geffray Teste Noire', 'Shameful Death', and 'Golden Wings'. They all have medieval settings - Morris was obsessed with medieval world. In the prose fantasy 'The Hollow Land' (1856) an unjust knight enters an eartly paradise. He departs it, becomes aged, and finally regains the land through devotion to pictorial art.

In 1859 Morris married Jane Burden and worked as a professional painter (1857-62). Their home, Red House at Bexley, was designed by Philip Webb. It was an important landmark in domestic architecture. Literary fame Morris gained with the romantic narrative THE LIFE AND DEATH OF JASON, which appeared in 1867, and was based on the story of Jason, Medea, and the Argonauts. It was followed by THE EARTHLY PARADISE (1868-70), and BOOK OF VERSE (1870). Morris's visits in Iceland in the 1870s inspired The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Nibelungs (1876), which is regarded his principal poetic achievement. This period in Morris's life was marked by marriage problems - his wife had an affair with Rossetti and he was involved with Georgiana Burne-Jones.

In the 1860s Morris started revolutionize the art of house decoration and furniture in England after founding the firm of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. The firm first specialized in providing stained glass and fittings for churches, but gradually won a cliente for domestic wares. Morris himself was an energetic craftsman, who learned to dye for himself, when he decided that the firm should turn to printing of textiles. His "Daisy" wallpaper, designed in 1862, became famous - his wallpapers have never gone out of fashion. Other sought-after products were tapestries, carpets, stained glass and stencilled mural decorations etc. "I do not want art for a few, any more than I want education for a few, or freedom for a few," he once said. In 1877 he founded the Society for the protection of Ancient Buildings in protest against the destruction being caused by the restorers.

Morris defined art as "the expression by man of his pleasure in labor". In the Middle Ages art, according to him, artist were plain workmen. The things which are today's museum pieces, where common things earlier. Art should become this again: "a happiness for the maker and the user." Morris derived his art theories partly from Ruskin, who hated contemporary style and has said that a railway station could never be architecture. Ruskin advocated free schools, free libraries, town planning, smokeless zones, and green belts - ideas that presupposed social reforms.

The Morris family moved into Kelmscott House at Hammersmith in 1878. In 1883 he joined the Social Democratic Federation and subsequently organized the Socialist League, with its own publication, The Commonweal. In 1887 he and George Bernard Shaw led a political demonstration in London.

Morris's love for old handsome books and illuminated manuscripts resulted in the founding of the Kelmscott Press. It produced from 1891 to 1898 53 titles in 66 volumes, among others The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer. He also designed three typestyles for his press, and translated Virgil's Aeneid (1875), Odyssey (1887), and Beowulf (1895). Morris's novel The Well at the World's End (1896) was a forerunner of J.R.R. Tolkien's kind of secondary word fantasy literature. The protagonist is Ralph who drinks from the youth-giving and life-prolongin well. A Dream of John Ball (1888) and News from Nowhere (1891) were both socialist fantasies cast in a dream setting. Erich S. Rabkin dismissed News from Nowhere as "a Communist tract" but C.S. Lewis praised his style and language. "No mountains in literature are as far away as distant mountains in Morris," he wrote about Morris's fantasies.

"The Kelmscott Press reduced the matter to an absurdity - as seen from the point of view of brute serviceability alone - by issuing books for modern use, edited with the obsolete spelling, printed in black-letter, and bound in limp vellum fitted with thongs. As a further characteristic feature which fixes the economic place of artistic book-making, there is the fact that these elegant books are, at their best, printed in limited editions. A limited edition is in effect a guarantee - somewhat crude, it is true - that this book is scarce and that it therefore is costly and lends pecuniary distinction to its consumer." (from The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, 1953, originally published 1899)
On his death, Morris was widely mourned as 'our best man' by his fellow socialists. His view that the true stimulation to useful labor must be found in the work itself is still relevant. His designs brought about a complete revolution in public taste, though he was aware that only the rich could afford the products of his firm.

For further reading: Life of William Morris by John W. Mackail (1889); William Morris, A Critical Study by John Drinkwater (1912); Rehabilitations and Other Essays by C.S. Lewis (1939); William Morris: Romantic to Revolutionary by E.P. Thompson (1955); William Morris: His Life, Works, and Friends by Philip Henderson (1967); The Work of William Morris by Paul Thompson (1967); William Morris by Holbrook Jackson (1971); William Morris: The Man and the Myth by Robert P. Arnot (1976); Worlds Beyond the World: The Fantastic Vision of William Morris by Richard Mathews (1978); William Morris: A Reference Guide by Gary L. Aho (1985); William Morris: Romantic to Revolutionary, ed. by E.P. Thompson (1988); The Romances of William Morris by Amanda Hodgson (1987); William Morris: A Life for Our Time by F. MacCarthy (1994); William Morris: The Critical Heritage, ed. by Peter Faulkner (1995); Art, Enterprise and Ethics: The Life and Work of William Morris by Charles Harvey, Jon Press (1996); William Morris: Redesigning the World by John Burdick (1998); William Morris and the Aesthetic Constitution of Politics by Bradley J. MacDonald (1999) - See also: Snorri Sturluson
Selected works:

The Defence of Guenevere and other Poems, 1858
The Life and Death of Jason, 1867
The Earthy Paradise, 1868-70
Books of Verse, 1870
Love is Enough, 1872
Aeneid, 1875 (translation)
Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs, 1876 (4 vols.)
The Decorative Arts, 1878
Chants for Socialists, 1884-85
Odyssey, 1887 (translation)
A Dream of John Ball, 1888
The House of the Wolfings, 1889
The Story of the Glittering Plain, or the Land of Living Men, 1890
News from Nowhere, 1890
Poems by the Way, 1891
The Wood Beyond the World, 1894
Child Christopher, 1895
Beowulf, 1895 (translation)
The Well at the World's End, 1896
The Sundering Flood, 1898
The Collected Works of William Morris, 1910-15 (24 vols., ed. May Morris)
Stories in Prose, Stories in Verse, Shorter Poems, Lectures and Essays, 1934
William Morris, Artist, Writer, Socialist, 1936 (2 vols., ed. May Morris)
The Letters of William Morris to his Family and Friends, 1950 (ed. Philip Henderson)
Unpublished Letters, 1951
Selected Writings, 1963
The Collected Letters of William Morris, 1984
Political Writings of William Morris, 1984 (ed. by A.L. Morton)
The Collected Letters of William Morris, Part B: 1885-1888, 1987
The Collected Letters of William Morris, Part A: 1881-1884, 1988
The Collected Letters of William Morris: 1889-1892, vol III, 1996
The Collected Letters of William Morris: 1893-1896, vol. IV, 1996
William Morris
Born: 24 March 1834
Place of Birth: Elm House in Walthamstow, England
Died: 3 October 1896
Place of Death: Kelmscott House in Hammersmith, England
"O how I long to keep the world from narrowing on me, and to look at things bigly & kindly!"
(William Morris)

William Morris, one of the most brilliant and innovative progenitors of modern graphic design, was born at Elm House, the family estate, one of nine children. Despite the "boorish" Welsh blood, the family had done quite well for themselves. (It's interesting to note that also in 1834, popular classical composer Berlioz wrote "Childe Harold," based on Byron's poems.)

Growing up, Morris loved the romantic chivalry and simplicity of anything medieval (later he said he felt he'd been born out of his time). He read Walter Scott; his parents even got him a pony so he could play knight. He was happy and even spoiled, though quite temperamental. Much later his daughter Jenny was diagnosed with epilepsy, and he often wondered if some of his 'rages' weren't epilepsy (or Tourettes) related. He was particularly close to a sister, Emma, at least until she got married. Later, he wrote poetry inspired by Chaucer, Tennyson, Keats and Browning.

His romantic attachment to the natural world was already forming and evolving. His textiles --furniture, wall paper and fabric designs-- were to become the epitome of 'the organic,' which was so much a part of his perception of reality. While religiously agnostic, the physical world was forever jolting him by its sheer majesty, giving him what we would now call an almost spiritual 'global sense.'

While attending Exeter College at Oxford in 1853, he met Ned Burne-Jones. Morris and Burne-Jones found a common passion for medievalism, particularly the Arthurian legends. Together, they toured the great Gothic cathedrals of France. They would remain lifelong friends.

In 1856, Morris left school and moved to Red Lion Square with Ned, now an artist being mentored by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Morris was receiving a generous allowance for those days, and was able to be generous with his less prosperous friends.

While his parents would've preferred Morris to pursue a life with the clergy, he was bound and determined to find Beauty in a different way. He worked for the architectural office of G. E. Street and became interested in old building preservation. Preserving gothic and medieval styles were very much a part of his Pre-Raphaelite vision, as is later illustrated with his attempt to resurrect the illuminated manuscript.

In 1857 Morris, Burne-Jones, Rossetti and other Pre-Raphaelites painted the Oxford Union frescoes. Morris' philosophies converged with the Pre-Raphaelites, and evolved into his unique design style: organic in an age of artificial colors, mass production, and unnatural designs.

Morris met Jane Burden, who was modeling for Rossetti. She and her sister were local shop girls, born poor, as were a number of the Pre-Raphaelite women. The artist's attraction to the myth of Pygmalion transforming Galatea was another popular image in those days.

Morris painted Jane as Isolde (medieval wife of King Mark who falls in love with Tristan) in his only known canvas. He wrote, "I cannot paint you, but I love you." Maybe he felt he could better write about her? Charles Algernon Swinburne encouraged him to consider having his poems published.

Her great eyes, standing far apart,
Draw up some memory from her heart,
And gaze out very mournfully;
--Beata mean Domina!--
So beautiful and kind they are,
But most times looking out afar,
Waiting for something, not for me.
--Beata mean Domina!-- ***

The following year, Morris was twenty-five and Jane Burden eighteen, they were married. Years later, Gabriel and Jane had an affair (see Jane and Rossetti's sides). Had Morris sensed the undercurrent then? I think so, and more than that, I think he accepted it. His view toward Guenevere was always a sympathetic one.
While Morris was courting Jane, he had her and her sister learn to weave. The first years of their marriage were quite happy. Their two daughters, Jenny and May, were born. Morris was obviously a devoted father, referring to them in letters as "the littles." Their daughter May became a leading weaver in England.

In 1860, Morris commissioned PhilipWebb to design Red House in South London. Morris and others we now associate with the Pre-Raphaelites decorated Morris' new house in homage to medievalism-- they painted murals, wove tapestries, built furniture in a style that would later inspire the Arts & Crafts movement, and designed stained glass windows that would inspire Art Nouveau. (Probably out of possessiveness more than anything else, Morris hated Beardley's illustrations for his beloved tale of Arthur).

In 1861, Morris began writing The Earthly Paradise. (He often wrote while weaving, which explains why some of his poems are so long.) In 1862, Morris designed the first of many wallpapers for the Company.

His decorating style was revolutionary because it was natural in an age just embracing mass-production and lower standards in quality, color and design. Morris was such a perfectionist about color that for weeks his hands were dyed blue as he sloshed around in the dye vats (I'd have liked to have seen that), searching for the perfect hue. His style is rich but simple, rejecting the opulence of the French, royalist influence on the Victorian, and focusing on the more gothic, medieval side of the era. Morris believed that everything in the home should be beautiful and functional (a philosophy that the Bloomsbury movement adopted). Frank Lloyd Wright said Morris was a direct influence. And this can all be credited to the man who once said, "I am a boor and the son of a boor!"

By 1865, troubled by the affair between Jane and Rossetti, Morris grew obsessed with taking a pilgrimage to Iceland. Their myths, steeped with brotherhood and endurance, touched him deeply. He made two pivotal trips there, eventually producing the first major translations of the myths. The translations were no doubt read later by D.H. Lawrence who had his own 'ice-queen' named Gudrun ("Women in Love").

The living conditions in Iceland took him totally by surprise. He'd always been liberal, but now he saw something that transcended the British social structure. In Iceland, everyone lived poor. Yet they were happy in a noble, teeth-gritting sort of way. When he returned to England, he was shocked at how the houses seemed so big against the horizon. In Iceland, the houses were small and functional-- and the countryside seemed so awesome and vast.

After his second trip to Iceland, Morris returned home and began dissolving his friendship with Rossetti, first ousting him from Kelmscott Manor in Oxfordshire (they'd shared tenancy since 1871). Without the share they'd been collecting from Rossetti, Morris moved his wife and daughters to the smaller Kelmscott House in Hammersmith. Morris returned to one of his favorite past-times: weaving. His daughters were educated well for those days.

His trips to Iceland were part of the catalyst for getting Morris more involved in politics, more specifically British Marx-based Socialism. He edited the Socialist League's journal, Commonweal. He continued to lecture on art and socialism but he also devoted more time to his fiction. In his politics, his writing, even his designs there was a theme: endure the hardship and a new, better day will dawn.

His published works during this time were mostly political and nonfiction, though interestingly enough done in the Chaucerian illuminated manuscript style, which for awhile Morris hoped would return to fashion. In 1891, Morris founded Kelmscott Press with specifically this goal in mind.

The Wood Beyond the World, one of the most influential of Morris's Utopian prose fantasies, was published in 1894. His prose influenced the burgeoning genre of fantasy/utopia/science fiction-- C.S. Lewisnamed Morris as a favorite.

He died at the age of 62, at home, his doctor giving his cause of death as "simply being William Morris and having done more work that most ten men." He was buried in the Kelmscott Village churchyard.



Yet, Jenny, looking long at you,
The woman almost fades from view.
A cipher of man's changeless sum
Of lust, past, present, and to come,
Is left. A riddle that one shrinks
To challenge from the scornful sphinx.
--DG Rossetti "Jenny"

In John Irving's "The World According to Garp," Garp's mother is a nurse who inseminates herself on an otherwise out-of-it erect patient.When a male writer wants to create a male character who will be the victim of female foibles, he delivers her of this woman-- the seed stealer. What more primal character, must be a daughter of Lilith, to commit an act so utterly... female. To own ones own uterus and take total responsibility for it. To not need a man.

When a woman writer --Mary Shelley in this case-- wants to invent the female equivalent ("Frankenstein"), the most frightening thing she can imagine is the man not needing the woman. The man simply takes it upon himself to exhume a body (how male!) and start it up, you know with sparks and all that other manly stuff. Silly men! And it only brings trouble.

Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) imagined the cosmos like a spiral, with the upper arm weaving up into heaven and the lower arm burrowing down deep into the earth (Hell). Purgatory was on Earth in a secret place-- the place that used to be the garden of Eden. There were three kinds of love we were given as a sort of connection with the cosmos: divine love, sexual love, and courtly love.

The Pre-Raphaelites believed in courtly love-- as well as the other kinds of love of course, though it could be said each artist favored one type. William Morris was probably more comfortable with courtly love than sexual love, whereas D.G. Rossetti was accused by critics as writing poetry that was too sensual, while Ruskin was obviously more comfortable with divine love.

The Pre-Raphaelite men wanted to be friends with their women and not just seduce them or marry them. While courtship was practiced in the Victorian era, it was a very formal endeavor and hardly the more heartfelt interaction that the original Dante had envisioned.

Still, the Pre-Raphaelite men were men and they loved beautiful things-- particularly beautiful women. They would scour the streets for 'stunners,' as Rossetti dubbed them. Many of these stunners were diamonds in the rough. Lower class working girls and even prostitutes; women not seen as appropriate to introduce to society. Yet they were women lovely to paint and they were willing to be painted.

George Bernard Shaw wrote "Pygmalion" with not just the Pre-Raphaelites in mind, but with the mother Mrs Higgins based on the older Jane Morris. The plot of "My Fair Lady," the only version of "Pygmalion" I've seen, is of two upper class, educated men who decide to turn a lower class waif into a high society girl. In the movie the girl is played by Audrey Hepburn and on Broadway she was Julie Andrews-- needless to say, she not only becomes a society woman but wins the heart of the curmudgeonly Dr Higgins.

Hunt planned on educating and marrying Annie Miller. Brown married a woman from a lower class background (although she eventually made him miserable with her lowbrow ways). Jane Morris was the daughter of a groom; she and her sister had been shop girls. Ruskin found Effie, rejected her, let Millais find her (he was shocked when on their wedding night he found she had pubic hair; it's no surprise Effie was able to obtain an annulment).

All I want is a room somewhere...
--"Wouldn't it be Loverly" My Fair Lady

Rossetti's first muse was his sister, Christina Rossetti, a stunner who wouldn't be owned (she never married and probably never took a lover). Sisterly and chaste, Christina was the epitome of divine love. Lizzie was the woman D.G Rossetti was a going to save and reshape, like the sculptor transforming stone into the ideal woman.

Lizzie wasn't low born but she was frail and needed creative guidance. The pressure of trying to save her was too much and he kept running away-- usually into the arms of other women, like Fanny Cornforth, a prostitute and model. While he shared intellectual passions with Lizzie, who eventually became his wife, it's obvious he also enjoyed the company of simpler women:

This room of yours, my Jenny, looks
A change from mine so full of books...
--D.G. Rossetti "Jenny"

Trapped in a loop of 'the survival of the most beautiful,' many women failed to adjust. Some women like Fanny bucked the system and never really conformed. Jane conformed but to her own advantage. Somehow she had transformed herself from a shop girl to a proper English lady, with her successful designer husband and roguish artist lover. Many of the most beautiful portraits were done of her when she was a mother of two and well into her thirties.

Did Pygmalion create Galatea to be the perfect artist's model? As a woman I will never completely understand.

The boy is a bird
The boy is always a much prettier bird than any old girl bird
--the Geraldine Fibbers