A Dream of John Ball
1888
First Published
3.48
Average Rating
110
Number of Pages
A Dream of John Ball (1888) is a novel by English author William Morris about the English peasants' revolt of 1381 and the rebel John Ball. Like the novels close contemporary - A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889) by Mark Twain - it describes a dream and time travel encounter between the medieval and modern worlds. However unlike Twain's vision of a violent and chaotic "Dark Age", Morris describes a positive image of the Middle Ages, seeing it as a golden, if brief, period when peasants were prosperous and happy and guilds protected workers from exploitation.
Avg Rating
3.48
Number of Ratings
61
5 STARS
11%
4 STARS
43%
3 STARS
31%
2 STARS
11%
1 STARS
3%
goodreads
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.
