Kelmscott Chaucer

The work edition of Geoffrey Chaucer, published in 1896 in Folio format, is probably the most famous print of the Kelmscott Press and a monument of the new book art movement. This so-called “Kelmscott Chaucer” is an elaborately designed book art piece, a real community work that several people worked together in a workshop community. William Morris, who selected a classic of English literature with late medieval author Chaucer, created his own font for the text of this issue, the so-called Chaucer-Type, which is based on the roundgothic fonts of early print, and also designed the borders and initials, his study friend Edward Burne-Jones drew the illustrations of the text, which were executed in wooden engraving. The specimen of the MKG belongs to the preferred edition, which was integrated by the Doves Bindery in 1903 on wooden covers with blind embossed pork leather.