In the end, as Lewis tumbled toward faith, Morris and MacDonald were the question and answer, respectively, on the question death and spirituality. Together, these three writers-filled in by Milton and some non-M writers like Dante, Swift, and Spenser-provided an imaginative landscape for his own worldview-infused fiction. Lewis’ teenage trinity of “M” writers- Malory, Morris, and MacDonald-was made complete when Lewis providentially stumbled upon Phantastes in March of 1916. Lewis praised “the cool water-colour effects” and “ northern bareness” of Morris (“The Literary Impact of the Authorized Version”), and mentions him dozens of times in his letters.

We can see Morris’ influence on Lewis as early as his first attempt at writing an adventure story, his teenage “Quest of Bleheris,” which Lewis sent weekly to his best friend in 1916. Lewis saw Morris as one of the great mythopoeic writers of his age. Before the age of 16, Lewis was able to make the grand statement that Malory was the master and Morris the disciple (see a letter to Arthur Greeves, ). This critical love of Morris began early. In that early literary essay, delivered first to the M artlet Society in Nov 1937, his piece on William Morris was the one “into which I had put most of my heart, the one I really cared about and in which I discharged a keen enthusiasm” (“Fern Seeds and Elephants” see also “On Criticism”). Lewis wrote literary criticism about him beginning in his first collection of essays ( Rehabilitations, 1939, now in Selected Literary Essays). Lewis’ great literary conversation partners was William Morris. (Summary by Wikipedia)įor further information, including links to online text, reader information, RSS feeds, CD cover or other formats (if available), please go to the LibriVox catalog page for this recording.įor more free audio books, or to become a volunteer reader, please visit of C.S. Morris' response is that all work should be creative and pleasurable. In the novel, Morris tackles one of the most common criticisms of socialism the supposed lack of incentive to work in a communistic society. This agrarian society functions simply because the people find pleasure in nature, and therefore they find pleasure in their work. In this society there is no private property, no big cities, no authority, no monetary system, no divorce, no courts, no prisons, and no class systems.

In the book, the narrator, William Guest, falls asleep after returning from a meeting of the Socialist League and awakes to find himself in a future society based on common ownership and democratic control of the means of production. News from Nowhere (1890) is a classic work combining utopian socialism and soft science fiction written by the artist, designer and socialist pioneer William Morris. LibriVox recording of News From Nowhere by William Morris.

William morris nowhere