Exeter College showcases William Morris treasures to the public

On Monday 28th September Exeter joined forces with six other Oxford colleges to host a Special Collections walking tour, with the aim of showing some of our historic collections to the general public. The theme of the tour was ‘Hidden Strengths’ and Exeter’s display focussed on William Morris, highlighting both the unexpected Morris items in our collection and the lesser-known aspects of his work.

Morris was a prolific translator, translating works from ancient Greek, Latin, Icelandic, Old English, and Old French. To highlight this one of the items on display was the 1894 Kelmscott Press edition of The Tale of the Emperor Coustans and of Over Seas, two thirteenth century romances “done out of ancient French into English by William Morris.” Also on display was his correspondence with Rector Prideaux Lightfoot concerning the specifics of the Adoration of the Magi tapestry, which Rector Lightfoot commissioned from Morris & Co in the 1880’s and which still hangs in the same place in Exeter’s chapel today.

For many the highlight of the display was the chance to see Morris’s personal copy of the Kelmscott Chaucer, which was shown alongside Caxton’s 1478 printing of Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy, translated by Chaucer. The two books were opened to the same passage, and visitors were clearly able to see the direct influence of early printed books upon Morris’s work.

Over the course of the afternoon we welcomed around two hundred visitors to the display at Cohen Quad, many of whom expressed great appreciation at being given the chance to see ‘behind closed doors’. It was a fantastic opportunity to show some of our diverse special collections to a wider audience, and one that we hope to repeat in future years.

William Morris-related books, manuscripts and archival material from Exeter College’s Special Collections on display at Cohen Quad.