"...The Change Beyond the Change"

Greetings, Gate!

Today the mail brought more books by William Morris:

A Dream of John Ball, 1902, Thomas B. Mosher, Portland, Maine. This is the fourth Mosher book I have and the second William Morris book from Mosher's pirate press. Like all Mosher books, A Dream of John Ball was published in a limited edition, this one being one of 925.

The Wood Beyond the World, 1972, Dover Books. I would like to own a book from Morris's Kelmscott Press, but financial reality prohibits that. But quality facsimiles such as this Dover edition are available, and those are nice. This edition of The Wood Beyond the World shows what Morris could do with book design and typography. From the intricate floral borders and capital letters, to the use of colored text on the page, books printed by Morris became something more than an object, but an experience. Looking at The Wood Beyond the World I can clearly see the influence Morris had on Elbert Hubbard and the Roycroft books.

Speaking of books, I am steadily working my way through Flaubert's Salammbo and greatly enjoying it. It's very, very different from Madame Bovary, the only other book of Flaubert's I've read, in that he seems more concerned with pictorial description rather than clinical character analyzation. Salammbo seems like a De La Croix painting in prose and, to me, it's certainly the precursor to the late 19th Century Decadent writers.

In other news, my account problem at the QuirkyAlone forum was speedily solved by one of the admins and I've been spending a lot of time perusing and posting in the forum. What nice people! Interesting, articulate and friendly. Very nice, indeed.