Books from the Kelmscott Press showing as part of Morris & CoWellington’s Alexander Turnbull Library has kindly lent the Christchurch Art Gallery what is widely regarded as one of the most outstanding books ever printed. The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer is a treasure to behold – around 600 pages of elaborate William Morris designs and over 80 illustrations. Produced by William Morris’s Kelmscott Press in 1896, it is part of the major exhibition Morris & Co now showing at the gallery. Kelmscott Press was William Morris’s last major artistic and design venture and between 1891 and 1898 it produced fifty-two titles. A small selection of Kelmscott Press books is part of the show - a little something for book-lovers like me to drool over.
