The Wood Beyond the World [Paperback]

William Morris (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 1972

A wonderful fantasy set in a medieval never-never land, reprinted here as a facsimile of the beautiful Kelmscott Press edition. Morris was source behind Dunsany, Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, etc.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

A groundbreaking fantasy novel, The Wood Beyond the World tells the story of a young man, Golden Walter, who finds himself in a strange and frightening world after being abandoned by his wife and lost at sea. The novel takes the form of Walter's quest for the visionary Maid that he sees at the beginning of his journey, and takes him from his failed marriage through temptation to emotional fulfillment. Set in Morris's imaginative recreation of a medieval world, the novel is full of vivid imagery and surprising emotional realism. This edition collates for the first time the three early texts of the work. The introduction discusses the place of the book among Morris's other prose romances, the events of his life, and his activities as a visual artist and a socialist. The appendices provide excerpts from Morris's translation of Beowulf, other medieval texts read by Morris, and writings by his contemporaries on politics and aesthetics. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

About the Author

Robert Boenig is Professor of English at Texas A&M University, and the co-editor, with Andrew Taylor, of the Broadview Edition of Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 261 pages
• Publisher: Dover Publications; Facsimile of Kelmscott P ed edition (June 1, 1972)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 048622791X
• ISBN-13: 978-0486227917
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.7 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.3 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,231,904 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars wonderful and unusual reading experience, November 25, 2000

By 

Orrin C. Judd "brothersjudddotcom" (Hanover, NH USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Wood Beyond the World (Paperback)

The book you hold in your hands is the first great fantasy novel ever written: the first of them all; all the others. Dunsany, Eddison, Pratt, Tolkein, Peake, Howard, et al., are successors to this great original.

By fantasy, I mean the tale of quest, adventure or war set in an invented age and worldscape of the author's own imagination. -Lin Carter (Introduction to The Wood Beyond the World)

I like the definition of fantasy that Carter provides there and William Morris is certainly an early practitioner of the genre, but I think you've got to give pride of place to George MacDonald [see Orrin's review of The Princess and the Goblin (1872) (George MacDonald 1824-1902) (Grade: A)]

At any rate, William Morris is one of the more interesting and influential characters of Victorian England. Repelled by the changes that the Industrial Revolution had brought to Britain, he yearned for more pastoral times. By profession a Medievalist, he translated Norse sagas and printed them in beautiful editions. An artist and founder of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, he designed many of the flowery tapestries and wallpapers that we associate with the Victorian drawing room. Politically he was a utopian Socialist. And, as Carter says, as a writer he helped to create the fantasy novel. In all of these pursuits he harkened back to an idealized past, no where more so than in his writing.

The language, style and story of this novel lend it an aura of antiquity, as if it too was merely a translation of some medieval romance. The hero of the story, Golden Walter, flees his home upon realizing that his new bride hates him. Sailing forth on one of his merchant father's ships, his fate becomes intertwined with a mysterious trio: a splendid lady, her evil dwarf servant and a young maiden whom the lady has enslaved. Walter pursues the trio beyond the reaches of his own world to The Golden House, governed by the lady, known only as The Mistress. There he will battle the dwarf, free the maiden, with whom he has fallen in love, and together they will flee the Mistress.

Though Morris may have intended to recall a lost past, he truly does create a unique world of his own. It is a world in which the reader can lose himself for hours and it makes for a wonderful and unusual reading experience.

GRADE: B+

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Quaint Fairy Tale, December 22, 2001

By 

Jisetsu "beancurdsbooks" (Rivendell) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Wood Beyond the World (Paperback)

The Wood Beyond the World
by William Morris

This book will appeal to readers who are interested in the origins of modern fantasy. William Morris is cited by scholars as an influence on 20th century writers who gave birth to the genre, and The Wood Beyond the World is a readily available example of his work (and also considerably shorter than his Well at the World's End).

Simply put, the book is a romance, nay, a fairy tale of 260 pages. The 21st century reader had best be prepared for very light fare. None of the complexities that the modern reader has become accustomed to in fantasy are present, whether of plot, character, or setting.

Morris writes in an archaic form of English that is remniscient of that used by the American Howard Pyle (Story of King Arthur and his Knights, etc.) The language is not particularly hard to read, and while it does not stir the emotions the way, say, the neo-Elizabethan prose of E. R. Eddison does, neither does it seem awkward or detract from the reader's enjoyment of the story.

It is easy to see Morris's influence in the work of a writer like Lord Dunsany, whose King of Elfland's Daughter displays modern twists on some of the themes present in Wood Beyond the World.

Be certain to read this book in the Dover facsimile of the original Kelmscott Press Edition. A lot of the charm of the book is in the book itself: the typeface, the decorative artwork and illustrations.

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully archaic prose fits the bill in this fantasy!, March 24, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Wood Beyond the World (Paperback)

William Morris is sometimes called the father of modern fantasy. Curious as to the validity of this statement, I searched and found The Wood Beyond the World in a low-cost anthology I had in my library. Much to my delight as I read the novel, I found that this fantasy of visions, quests and magic could have been plotted today. But the prose style itself is so beautiful, so archaic that I wonder if anyone living today could have given it the tone of Pre-Raphaelite Morris. It contributes greatly to the reader's immersion in Morris' created world. The basic story is one of a prince wanderer who leaves his father's kingdom, is besieged by visions of a mysterious young woman who is in terrible danger. The young woman turns out to be a real person shortly into the book. The core of the story becomes the wanderer's efforts to save her as they fall deeply in love.