The Story of the Glittering Plain Which Has Been Also Called the Land of Living Men or the Acre of the Undying

Written by William Morris. The Kelmscott Press, Upper Mall, Hammersmith, 1894.

One of 250 copies on paper, of a total edition of 257 (7 on vellum). 29.5 x 21.8 x 2.4 cm; pp. [8] + 184. Troy type (table of contents in Chaucer type) on Batchelor hand-made paper with the Perch watermark. Twenty-three woodcut illustrations (by Walter Crane), two full-page woodcut borders and title, side and three-quarter woodcut borders, and numerous woodcut initials; chapter titles in red. Original full limp vellum, with brown silk ties; title gilt on spine. The first Kelmscott edition was not illustrated, but used decorated capitals and Morris’s “Golden” typeface (after Nicolas Jenson). This one illustrated by Crane appeared in 1894. Morris increased the size of the book from small to large quarto, and changed the typeface to “Troy” (a more Gothic design). Walter Crane supplied illustrations on a profit-sharing basis: these were designed as woodcuts in accordance with Morris’s commitment to techniques typical of 15th and 16th-century European book production.

Peterson A22.