William Morris (1834-1896) was a British textile designer, poet, novelist, translator, and socialist activist. Associated with the British Arts and Crafts Movement, he was a major contributor to the revival of traditional British textile arts and methods of production. His literary contributions helped to establish the modern fantasy genre, while he played a significant role in propagating the early socialist movement in Britain. n Owen Holland is a Teaching Fellow at UCL in Nineteenth-century Literature. He is the author of William Morriss Utopianism.n