This edition collates for the first time the three early texts of the work. The introduction discusses the place of the book among Morris’s other prose romances, the events of his life, and his activities as a visual artist and a socialist. The appendices provide excerpts from Morris’s translation of Beowulf, other medieval texts read by Morris, and writings by his contemporaries on politics and aesthetics.
Robert Boenig is Professor of English at Texas A&M University, and the co-editor, with Andrew Taylor, of the Broadview Edition of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales.