Utopia.

MORE, Sir Thomas. Translated by Ralph Robinson. Foreword by William Morris. Edited by F.S. Ellis.

$11,000.00

Item Number: 149538

Hammersmith, in the County of Middlesex: Printed by William Morris at the Kelmscott Press, 1893.

The Kelmscott Press limited edition of  Sir Thomas More’s “quintessential humanist dialogue” (ODNB), first published in Louvain in 1516. Quarto, original publisher’s limp vellum with gilt titles to the spine, original silk ties, text printed in red and black in Chaucer and Troy types, 2 full-page woodcut borders and initials designed by William Morris. One of 300 copies printed by William Morris and edited by Frederick S. Ellis. William Morris believed that Utopia belonged in every Socialist’s library. 40 copies of this edition were “ordered in advance by an Eton master, with the intention of distributing them as prizes among the boys of the college, but when the work appeared with a compromisingly Socialistic introduction by Morris, the order, from motives of prudence, had to be cancelled.” Cockerell 16; Peterson A16; Sparling 16. In fine condition. Housed in a custom slipcase. An exceptional example.

Thomas More’s Utopia (1516) drew on a rich tapestry of intellectual influences, including Plato’s Republic, St. Augustine’s De civitate Dei, Amerigo Vespucci’s accounts of the New World, and Erasmus’s Institutio Principis Christiani. These sources converged in More’s portrayal of an idealized society that critiqued the political and social structures of early 16th-century Europe. Utopia was "a tract for the times, to rub in the lesson of Erasmus; it inveighs against the new statemanship of all-powerful autocracy and the new economics of large enclosures and the destruction of the old common-field agriculture, just as it pleads for religious tolerance and universal education" (PMM). William Morris's Kelmscott Press edition of 1893 represented a significant moment in the book’s reception history, aligning More’s humanist vision with the ideals of the Arts and Crafts movement. Morris, a socialist and a key figure in the revival of traditional craftsmanship, saw in Utopia a kindred critique of industrial capitalism and social inequality. The Kelmscott edition, with its richly ornamented typography and hand-crafted aesthetic, emphasized the book’s ethical and artistic value, treating it not merely as a literary classic but as a political and philosophical statement. By publishing Utopia in a form that rejected mass production and celebrated medieval design principles, Morris reinforced the text’s challenge to modern economic structures—much like More had criticized the enclosure movement and the erosion of common-field agriculture in the 16th century.