Wilde, Morris and all that

[hitmouse]

Bit of a niche one here, but I've got a friend who's just got into reading Kristian Williams' work on Oscar Wilde and really enjoyed it, so I suggested she might like Communal Luxury by Kristin Ross and she seems to be really liking that as well. Does anyone else have any favoured recommendations for work on 19th-century aesthetes and anarchism?

 

[yield]

News from Nowhere by William Morris utopian sci-fi novel

The Unknown Masterpiece by Honore de Balzac short story

Félix Fénéon, aesthete & anarchist in fin-de-siècle Paris by Joan U. Halperin. May be able to borrow it here?

 

[The39thStep]

News from Nowhere is a good read

 

[Gramsci]

EP Thompson biography of William Morris I read years ago.

Morris had been accepted as serious artist putting his politics in the background. The politics to be dismissed.

Thompson puts his politics and art together. Ground breaking biography for its time.

Morris did use some of his wealth to fund very radical groups. Who were basically anarchist.

 

[hitmouse]

I was coming back to this thread to ask if anyone had read the Thompson biography, but see that's been answered above. Has anyone read Sheila Rowbotham on Edward Carpenter or her book Rebel Crossings?

 

[kenny g]

I was coming back to this thread to ask if anyone had read the Thompson biography, but see that's been answered above. Has anyone read Sheila Rowbotham on Edward Carpenter or her book Rebel Crossings?

Nope but thanks for the suggestions. One of the things I loved in the Morris museum was his appreciation of all those Essex weeds I spend my time admiring in my garden, and his ability to see the connection between nature, Viking / Icelandic design and Norman architecture. Sort of organitising what could otherwise be perceived as "high" art.