Love is Enough

William Morris, 1834-96

1897

29.5 x 21.4 cm.

Source: Love is Enough or the Freeing of Pharamond: A Morality, p. 6

Beckwith, Victorian Bibliomania catalogue no. 66

Collection: John Hay Library, Brown University

Love is Enough, a play written by William Morris after the manner of medieval morality plays, is based on the theme that love is more important and valuable than power or wealth. Morris completed the play in 1872 during the five-year period when he created his most accomplished illuminated manuscripts (cat. 59). [Continued below]

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Commentary by Alice H. R. H. Beckwith

He intended the first printed version to have wood-cut border illuminations, and illustrations by Edward Burne-Jones (Needham, 118). Trial pages were printed and three of them are illustrated in Paul Needham's catalogue, William Morris and the Art of the Book. However, the project was not completed, and when the work appeared, the only suggestion of Morris's hopes for ornamentation was the band of entwined vines that surrounded the title on the publisher's binding he designed for the 1872 edition (Needham, plate LXV).

The present edition was the second to last book published by the Kelmscott Press. Morris had died, but as with A Note by William Morris on His Aims in Founding the Kelmscott Press (cat. 21), his principles were adhered to by the press staff. Perhaps Morris's early wishes were recalled by his trustees; in any case, his long-term artistic collaborator, Burne-Jones, designed the borders on pages 6 verso and 7, and the opening and closing illustrations (Cary, 288). The final illustration is identified in the colophon as being intended for the 1872 edition.

Printed in Chaucer and Troy types, the Kelmscott Love Is Enough is the second of only two books from Morris's press printed in three inks, black, red, and blue. The other, Laudes Beatae Mariae Virginis (cat. 11), was the forty-second Kelmscott title, and the last to come out before Morris's death. Thus, the concept of a three-color printing came late to Kelmscott. Morris may have had such a scheme in mind for this volume before he died.

Page 6 of the Kelmscott version employs the Chaucer type in red for the stage directions, followed by the Troy type in black in the main body of the text. Initial letters of eight-line and four-line size are printed in a light blue that stands out very effectively against the black and red. A leafy vine with occasional bell-shaped flowers ornaments the margin and adds to the air of festivity conveyed by the page. The charm of the work comes from the sense of unity and the expert combinations of color.

This particular copy has a unique vellum binding by T. J. Cobden-Sanderson, a friend of Morris's from the 1880s Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society days. Most of Morris's Kelmscott books were issued in one of three temporary bindings: half holland, or stiff or limp vellum by J. & J. Leighton. For his personal copy Cobden-Sanderson produced this exquisitely simple covering in the dark porous vellum which Morris himself preferred (Morris, A Note, 19). Love Is Enough was a visual memorial to Morris, just as the last book from the Kelmscott Press (cat. 21) was a remembrance of his stated aims as a printer.

References

Beckwith, Alice H. R. H. Victorian Bibliomania: The Illuminated Book in Nineteenth-Century Britain. Exhibition catalogue. Providence. Rhode Island: Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, 1987.

Morris, William. Love is Enough or the Freeing of Pharamond: A Morality. Hammersmith, Kelmscott Press: Trustees of William Morris, 1897. Illuminator: William Mums. binder: T.J. Cobdin-Sanderson. Doves Bindery. Ex libris T. J. Cobden-Sanderson.

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Last modified 1 January 2014