Object, messenger: William Morris, mass-production, and the social roles of books

This thesis examines the influence of medieval manuscripts on the books of the Kelmscott Press, founded in 1891 by British author, designer, printer, and social reformer William Morris (1834--1896). Within the context of Morris's work, it explores the social roles of books, as physical objects and as carriers of information. Morris's reaction to the mass production of books and the effect that this has had on both their physical nature and on their social roles is analysed from several perspectives, including Walter Benjamin's theory of the "aura" of the art object.;With the introduction of the printing press in the fifteenth century, the social roles of books underwent a major change as books migrated from being rare objects for the privileged into widely available commodities. According to Morris, this shift was accompanied by a decline in their physical quality. Morris's founding of the Kelmscott Press was an attempt to improve the quality of books and the working conditions of those who made them.;At the Kelmscott Press, Morris attempted to counter the decrease of artistic quality by producing very high quality limited editions, thus reversing two of the primary trends set in motion by the printing press. Unlike most presses in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the Kelmscott Press created books in very small numbers, and did so with extensive decoration and great attention to their visual qualities.;An examination of the Kelmscott Press serves as a prism through which we can look past the informational content of the books and into their physical existence as works of art, as well as at their roles in society.