William Morris

William Morris (1834–1896) was an English poet, designer, printer and socialist. Educated at Oxford, where he met Burne-Jones and fell under the influence of Ruskin and the Pre-Raphaelites, he founded in 1861 the decorating firm that became Morris & Co., whose wallpapers and textiles are still produced. As a poet he wrote The Defence of Guenevere, The Earthly Paradise (1868–70) and Sigurd the Volsung, and with Eiríkr Magnússon he translated the Icelandic sagas. In the 1880s he became a leading socialist and wrote the prose romances The House of the Wolfings and News from Nowhere; in 1891 he founded the Kelmscott Press.