News from Nowhere (1890) is a classic work combining utopian socialism and soft science fiction written by the artist, designer and socialist pioneer William Morris. In the book, the narrator, William Guest, falls asleep after returning from a meeting of the Socialist League and awakes to find himself in a future society based on common ownership and democratic control of the means of production. In this society there is no private property, no big cities, no authority, no monetary system, no divorce, no courts, no prisons, and no class systems. This agrarian society functions simply because the people find pleasure in nature, and therefore they find pleasure in their work.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_from_Nowhere
http://morrisedition.lib.uiowa.edu/news.html
http://www.lib.umich.edu/pursuit-ideal-life-art-william-morris/writings.html
[First edition News from nowhere 1890]
On 22 November 1892 this book was completed by the Kelmscott Press, Morris' own publishing house which he had started in 1891. 300 copies, decorated with a woodcut of Morris' summer house Kelmscott Manor, were printed. But to Morris' grief, this was not the first edition of his own book. After the text had been published in chapters in Commonweal, the organ of the Socialist League, it was almost immediately published in America in 1890, without his special permission. Here is the title page of this first American edition.
I always associate Morris visually with Samuel Palmer. They had a similar Utopian vision I think. This is Early Morning from 1825.
It was a great printing press, nod.
ReplyDelete"This agrarian society functions simply because the people find pleasure in nature".. oh agreed. Work should be creative, exciting and not utterly exhausting.
From the book's frontispiece, we can assume that workers would find creativity in architecture, plant nurseries, printing, brick making, building, furniture making, garden design, tile making and a million other specialised careers.
Going back to a medieval hand-made economy might have created a more beautiful product, but it never seemed realistic. And it was too expensive for ordinary families to buy the finished product.
You're right of course but Morris had such a broad vision and the work that the Arts & Craft people produced is just so beautiful,
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