William Morris by Frederick Hollyer, 1887 24 March 1834|
|Died||3 October 1896 |Occupation||Artist, designer,
writer,libertarian, socialist| |Known for||Wallpaper and textile
design, fantasy fiction / medievalism, socialism| |Notable
work(s)||News from Nowhere, The Well at the World's End| William
Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was an English textile
designer, artist, writer, and libertarian socialist associated
with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and English Arts and Crafts
Movement. He founded a design firm in partnership with the
artist Edward Burne-Jones, and the poet and artist Dante Gabriel
Rossetti which profoundly influenced the decoration of churches
and houses into the early 20th century. As an author,
illustrator and medievalist, he helped to establish the modern
fantasy genre, and was a direct influence on postwar authors
such as J. R. R. Tolkien. He was also a major contributor to
reviving traditional textile arts and methods of production, and
one of the founders of the Society for the