Kelmscott Press
2 min readMar 9, 2020
The Kelmscott Press was founded by the socialist artist and writer William Morris (1834–1896) in January 1891 at Hammersmith, London. Morris’ Kelmscott Press is perhaps the best-known example of a private press. There William Morris led the 19th-century revival of the art and craft of making books.
The three types designed by Morris and used by the press:
- The Golden type, named for The Golden Legend (1892).
- The Troy type, named for The Recuyell of the Histories of Troye (1892).
- The Chaucer type, named for the Chaucer folio.
The Chaucer type is smaller than the Troy type; otherwise, they are the same. After the death of Morris in 1896 the press completed some work that he had planned, but no new work was undertaken. The final publication of the press was A Note by William Morris on His Aims in Founding the Kelmscott Press (1898).
