New book - How we might live: At Home with Jane and William Morris

 

D.G. Rossetti, 'The Blue Silk Dress'

'The house that would please me would be some great room, where one talked to one’s friends in one corner, and ate in another, and slept in another, and worked in another.’

William Morris – poet, designer, campaigner, hero of the Arts & Crafts movement – was a giant of the Victorian age. His beautiful creations and radical philosophies are still with us today: but his wife Jane is too often relegated to a footnote, an artist’s model given no history or personality of her own. In truth, Jane and William’s partnership was the central collaboration of both their lives. Together they overturned conventional distinctions between work and play, public and private spaces, women and men, even the Victorian class structure. 

At every stage, Jane was transformative, hospitable and engaged. The homes they made together – at Red House, Kelmscott Manor and their houses in London – were works of art, and the great labour of their lives was life itself. Through their houses, their friendships and their creations, they experimented with fruitful ways of living and working. They show us how we might enjoy lives filled with hope and beauty.

In 'How We Might Live', I explore the lives and legacies of Jane and William Morris, finally giving Jane’s work the attention she deserves and taking us inside two lives of unparalleled integrity and artistry.

As William said, 'The true secret of happiness lies in taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life.'