May Morris — artist and embroiderer
- Creator(s):
- Morris, William (Translator)
- Title:
- Of the Friendship of Amis and Amile
- Publication/Origin:
- Hammersmith: Printed by the said William Morris at the Kelmscott Press, 1894
- Description:
- May Morris was an artist, embroiderer, designer, socialist, and suffragist. A daughter of Jane and William Morris, she lived much of her life at Kelmscott House, a major center of the Arts and Crafts movement in England. She managed the embroidery division of Morris and Company, founded by her father. In 1907 she co-founded the Women’s Guild of Arts in response to the exclusion of women from the Art Worker’s Guild. In 1909, while on a lecture tour of the United States, she met New York lawyer and collector John Quinn, with whom she had a short romantic relationship. She presented him with a Kelmscott edition of Amis and Amile, held in her own designed and hand-stitched silk pouch. The book was bound by Katharine Adams in gold-tooled green pigskin in 1894. Adams, her close childhood friend, trained as a binder under Sarah T. Prideaux and established the Eadburgha Bindery in Broadway, Worcestershire.
- Source:
- Women’s Guild of Arts Records
- Citation:
- Morris, William (Translator), Of the Friendship of Amis and Amile, Hammersmith: Printed by the said William Morris at the Kelmscott Press, 1894, Lisa Unger Baskin Collection, Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University. Accessed April 24, 2024, https://exhibits.library.duke.edu/exhibits/show/baskin/item/4301