New Voices in Morris Studies: Sheryl Medlicott, Bath Spa University
[Image 1] Frontispiece of News from Nowhere, Kelmscott Press Edition William Morris & the Environment When William Guest awakes in the future utopian London envisaged by Morris in News from Nowhere , the ‘smoke-vomiting chimneys’ are gone, there are salmon nets catching salmon in the Thames, and he is taken out on the river by a boatman who is utterly confounded by attempts to pay him for the boat trip, the exchange of labour for money being a completely alien concept. [1] Evidently society has fundamentally transformed, and with it the environment. News from Nowhere is in many ways Morris’ response to man-made (or specifically capitalist-made) environmental degradation. This blog post focuses on Morris’ environmentalism and the insight his utopia offers for twenty-first century responses to environmental crisis, in particular with regards to a common concern about the scale on which humans are acting as agents for environmental change. [Image 2] 1871 Ordnance Survey