Kelmscott Press

Kelmscott Press.
A private printing press founded in 1890 by William Morris at Hammersmith, London, and named after the village near Oxford where he had lived since 1871. Between 1891 and 1898, two years after Morris's death, the press issued more than 50 titles, including editions of several of Morris's own works. Deeply influenced by his study of early printing, Morris himself designed most of the type, borders, ornaments, and title pages. The press's greatest book, and by common consent one of the world's masterpieces of book production, is the 1896 edition of Geoffrey Chaucer's works, with illustrations by Burne-Jones. Although short-lived, the Kelmscott Press had enormous influence on the private presses that followed in its wake.