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The Grolier Club, at 47 East 60th Street, is a bibliophile's dream. The book-lined walls and the  dark-wood rooms may seem like an exclusive retreat for literary elites, but in fact, exhibitons here are open to the public 9-5 Monday through Saturday. The lucky New York public had the chance this month to catch the radiant "Victorian Connections" exhibition co-curated by Natasha Moore and Mark Samuels Lasner, located discreetly on the second floor of the Grolier Club. Here one found an exuberant collection of rare artefacts from a broad swath of Victorian cultural life. From a presentation copy of William Morris's Volsunga Saga, to letters, inscribed books, and portraits of other giants such as Alfred Lord Tennyson, Thomas Carlyle, Thomas Hardy, Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning, there was much to marvel over.  The sheer breadth of an exhibition devoted to a minor poet, William Allingham (1824–1889),  and his artist wife Helen (née Paterson, 1848–1926),  seemed out

This is part three of a three part conversation series on the Kelmscott/Goudy Press and the original William Morris broadside we commissioned to be printed on that press. Today, the artist Steven Lee-Davis joins us to talk about his inspirations and creative process. Do you feel that Morris has influenced your art at all? I attended art school in the 80's and at that time painting was largely within the realm of expressiveness. DeKooning and Kandinsky were still the exemplars. So, I was a bit of an oddball as I sought out the Pre-Raphaelites, Nazarenes, and Neo-Classical painters. Even as far back as high-school I would study paintings executed by the Pre-Raphaelites reproduced in fairytale books -- of course, I had no idea what I was looking at, but it fit well with my passion for fantasy illustration. It wasn't until much later that I really began to pull out the different artistic personalities of the Victorian age and dive into the writing of Ruskin, Rossetti, and Morris

This is part two of a three part conversation series on the famous Kelmscott/Goudy Press. The K/G was once used by William Morris at his Kelmscott press, and is now found at the Cary Collection at RIT. Our first guest was Steven Galbraith, Curator of the Cary Collection. Today, we catch up with Amelia Hugill-Fontanel, Associate Curator at the collection, and the person charged with restoring the press. Watch this space for a Q & A with Stephen Lee-Davis, the talented artist who printed a limited-edition broadside on the press. 1. What did you enjoy most about restoring the Kelmscott/Goudy Press?  As with any of the historic presses in the Cary, I enjoy the process of giving an historic printing press a new useful life. While working on a press I always picture the finished press, how it will be used to teach, and what projects and programming we can design around it. I admit that the restoration of the K-G was a bit nerve-wracking. I was hyper-aware that many great designers and p