One of the most versatile and gifted of all the Victorians, William Morris has had an important influence on literature, printing, interior decoration, and thought on the relation of government and the arts. He wrote poems and stories and translated the Aeneid (1875) and the Odyssey (1887). He modeled in clay, carved wood and stone, illuminated manuscripts, and did embroidery. He designed wallpapers, textiles, stained glass, and furniture for his flat in Red Lion Square in Oxford, and he loved printing and bookbinding. Yet with all his talent he left Oxford without a degree. He also contributed significantly to modern fantasy and science fiction with his medieval romances and his utopian novel News from Nowhere (1890).

Morris was born on 24 March 1834 in Walthamstow, and he grew up next to Epping Forest, a unique tract of land unchanged since the Middle Ages. Early in his life he began to acquire a detailed...