1. THE RED LETTER POETS the four variant cover designs in
different colours
Shelley Poems
Oliver Wendell Holmes The Autocrat of the
Breakfast Table 1903
and E.B.Browning Poems undated
Sir Thomas Brown
Religio Medici, 1906 and Henry Vaughn
Silex Scintillans 1905
Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Plays
October 1910
2. Individual poets -
SHELLEY
click to enlarge
paper wrapper
front cover
detail
front cover
cloth
endpapers
signed bottom right
half title
title page spread
Although most of Morris' designs are to
be found on the cover - leaving the rest of the
book conventional (even banal) some commissions
entailed a more extensive use of design throughout.
The Red Letter Poets allowed Morris to
infuse the entire book - endpapers - layout and
rubrication with his own design philosophy.
decorative detail
from the spine
characteristic double page design with
leaf motif rubrication
Another edition of Shelley
(1903) in the Red Letter
Poets
variant endpapers and titlepage
endpapers
scattering of apple green and pink heart
shapes - three roses on stems and, flanking, four
stylized plant stems - behind a bean shaped panel -
printed on grey paper
titlepage
left - a repetition of the
endpaper rose motif contained within overlapping
panels and Morris' characteristic lettering in two
weightings - contrasts with inept and inappropriate
portrait of Shelley
right - roses, stems and six
calling birds in apple green and pink
