Heading: (Kelmscott Press)
Author: Morris, William
Title: News from Nowhere: Or, an Epoch of Rest, Being Some Chapters from a Utopian Romance
Place Published: Hammersmith
Publisher:Kelmscott Press
Date Published: 1893
Description:

[6], 305, [1] pp. Woodcut frontispiece & initials. 20.5x14 cm (8x5½"), original limp vellum, yap edges, ribbon ties, spine lettered in gilt, supplied clamshell box stamped with gilt lettering on spine. One of 300 copies.

The Thomas B. Mosher copy, with his bookplate. Thomas Bird Mosher (1852-1923) was an important link in the dissemination of arts and crafts ideas into the United States and into the 20th century. Influenced by the renaissance of book arts inaugurated by Morris in Britain, Mosher published nearly 385 limited editions and established The Bibelot literary magazine. News from Nowhere is Morris's utopian novel of a just socialist society wherein the narrator wakes to a post-revolutionary future without private property, industrialization, money – to a post-capitalist system. In this pastoral paradise, all members of society work co-operatively and take pleasure in their labor. Reluctantly, the narrator returns to his own time, resolved to make this future a reality. illustrated frontispiece, designed by Charles March Gere, shows the entrance to Kelmscott Manor, Morris's country home on the Oxfordshire/Gloucestershire border near Lechlade, after which he named his house in Hammersmith and the Press itself. In this delightful association copy, the light is passed from master to the disciple, who would, in turn, illuminate his part of the American Century.

Ribbon ties show some loss, bump to vellum at heel, lettering fading just slightly; paper residue on front free endpaper from dealer label, minor toning to endpapers; a near fine copy.