William Morris on Socialism

Florence S. Boos is Professor of English at the University of Iowa. The founder and general editor of the William Morris Archive, she has also edited Morris’s Socialist Diary, The Earthly Paradise, and most recently, The Routledge Companion to William Morris. Her books on Morris include History and Poetics in the Early Writings of William Morris and The Design of the Earthly Paradise. She is also the editor/author of two books on Victorian working-class women’s poetry and memoirs.

William Morris, the best known British socialist of the nineteenth century, is also the most widely appealing. Marxist revolutionaries, Fabians, anarchists, Labour Party stalwarts—all have claimed him as one of their own. Florence Boos’s collection of Morris’s political essays confirms that Morris contained multitudes. Yet powerful, unchanging beliefs link the Gladstonian liberal of the 1870s with the visionary author of News from Nowhere. Boos’s deeply informed introductions to every essay draw out their underlying themes and illuminate Morris’s enduring relevance.

• List of FiguresList of AbbreviationsAcknowledgementsSeries PrefaceIntroduction: William Morris’s Uncollected Political Essays: Equality, Non-Violence, and "One Socialist Party"Part I: From Liberalism to Socialism, 1878–18811. Early Political Essay, Untitled, ["Against War with Russia"], 18782. Address at the Cambridge School of Art Prizegiving ["Art for All"], February 21, 18783. "Our Country Right or Wrong," January 18804. A Lecture Delivered to the Men’s and Women’s College ["Art and Inequality"], 1880Part II: Socialism: The Middle Phase, 1883–18895. "An Invitation to Join the Democratic Federation," 18836. "The Relations of Art to Labour," April 1884, 1890 7. Address at the Opening of the Fourth Annual Loan Exhibition, Whitechapel, April 1884 8. "Misery and the Way Out," September 18849. "Introduction to A Review of European Society by John Sketchley," September 29, 188410. "Commercial War," 188511. "Socialism," 1885 12. "The Political Outlook," 1886 13. "Equality," 1888 14. "How Shall We Live Then," March 1889 15. Address on English Socialism on Behalf of the Socialist League: Report to the First Congress of the Second International, Paris, July 1889Part III: A Final Phase: Some Tempered Warnings, 1891–96Non-Violent Revolution 1891–94 16. "Socialism Up to Date," 1891 17. "Communism—i. e. Property," 1892 18. "Town and Country," 1893 19. "How I Became a Socialist," June 1894 20. "Why I Am a Communist," 1894 Valedictory 1895–189621. "What We Have to Look For," 1895 22. "Change of Position – Not Change of Condition," 1895 23. ["One Socialist Party"], 1896 24. "Against the Abuses of Public Advertising," January 1896 25. "The Present Outlook of Socialism in England," April 1896 26. "The Promise of May," published in Justice, May 1896 Appendix: List of Morris’s Anthologized Essays Index