A Dream of John Ball and A King's Lesson
1886
First Published
3.83
Average Rating
116
Number of Pages
William Morris (1834-1896) was a British artist and writer. Morris wrote poetry, fiction and translated Icelandic. Morris was part of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and was one of the founders of the British Arts and Crafts Movement. Morris believed that art should be hand made and affordable. He also felt that no one form of art was superior to any other. As an artist Morris worked with textiles in weaving, dyeing, carpet making, and wood block printing. His writing often reflected his socialist views. Morris had strong beliefs about the possibility of a Utopian society. Morris in these two stories talks about the sense of justice in a Utopian society. He hopes the reader will leave these stories with a genuine disgust for feudalism. When John Ball awakes he finds himself in an old fashioned cloak beside a quiet country road. He is amazed to see a knight on horseback pass him by. John realized he has somehow been transported back centuries in time.
Avg Rating
3.83
Number of Ratings
64
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3 STARS
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2 STARS
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Author
William Morris
Author · 32 books
William Morris was an English architect, furniture and textile designer, artist, writer, socialist and Marxist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and Crafts Movement. Morris wrote and published poetry, fiction, and translations of ancient and medieval texts throughout his life. His best-known works include The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems (1858), The Earthly Paradise (1868–1870), A Dream of John Ball and the utopian News from Nowhere. He was an important figure in the emergence of socialism in Britain, founding the Socialist League in 1884, but breaking with the movement over goals and methods by the end of that decade. He devoted much of the rest of his life to the Kelmscott Press, which he founded in 1891. The 1896 Kelmscott edition of the Works of Geoffrey Chaucer is considered a masterpiece of book design.
