The Tale of Beowulf [Done Out of the Old English Tongue by William Morris & A.J. Wyatt]

Hammersmith, Kelmscott Press, 1895, 4to, Original full limp vellum; title gilt on spine,brown ties.

One of 300 copies on paper, of a total edition of 308 (8 on vellum). 29.4 x 21.8 x 1.7 cm; pp. viii + 120. Troy type (shoulder and side-notes, argument, list of persons and places, and glossary in Chaucer type) on Batchelor hand-made paper with the Perch watermark. Two full-pages woodcut borders and title, half and three-quarter woodcut borders, and numerous woodcut initials; section titles and shoulder and side-notes in red.

For Morris Beowulf was “the first and the best poem of the English race”. His translation was based on a prose rendering by the Anglo-Saxon scholar Alfred J. Wyatt of Christ’s College, with whom he consulted over a two year period.

Peterson A32.