Kelmscott Press edition of 'Hand and Soul'

'Hand and Soul’ is a short story written by the Pre-Raphaelite painter and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Rossetti was a founding member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a group of artists and writers who rejected mainstream artistic education and sought a return to medieval techniques and aesthetics. This story, about a self-taught artist, was first published in the inaugural edition of the Pre-Raphaelite periodical ‘The Germ’ in 1850. It presents many of Rossetti’s ideas about art and aesthetics and became a vital text in understanding their artistic movement.

Whilst William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones were undergraduates at Oxford University together in 1856, they published their own periodical called ‘The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine’. In the first edition of the magazine, Burne-Jones contributed an essay that praised Rossetti’s work. Delighted by this mention, Rossetti became closely involved with Morris and Burne-Jones and by 1857 they were working together painting murals in the Oxford Union library.

Rossetti became a key associate of William Morris and was a founding member of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. when it was established in 1861. He later developed an intense relationship with Jane Morris, William’s wife, which complicated his work with the Firm. In 1875 Morris restructured the Firm as Morris & Co, buying out the original partners, including Rossetti.

This Kelmscott Press edition of ‘Hand and Soul’ was published in 1895, thirteen years earlier after Rossetti's death, following a lengthy battle with drug addiction.