The Earthly Paradise

This book is the first to make Morris's 42,000 word verse sequence accessible to a modern audience.

Morris's practical knowledge, passion for travel, and radical-democratic convictions also prompted him to explore areas of life not commonly associated with Victorian poetry. The edition's footnotes therefore gloss allusions to bird and animal lore, the practices of ancient and medieval agriculture and the details of Viking ships and medieval seafaring. Morris also wove many new imaginative details into his redactions of these legends, and the headnotes assess whether he followed his sources, drew on roughly analogous characters encountered elsewhere, or completely reinvented familiar characters. They also comment on several of Morris's deeper authorial decisions to portray women more favourably, for example; or focus on particular aspects of the Bubonic Plague; or insert pointed glosses of 'heroic' events by wary peasant bystanders and examine them in the light of Morris's other published views on art, history, politics and human relations. Ample illustrations and original initials, finally, provide a sense of The Earthly Paradise's original appearance and design.