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An Endeavour Towards the Teaching of John Ruskin and William Morris

[England]: Essex House Press, 1901. Stk. NK 1142 AT39.

‘The Arts and Craft movement began with the object of making useful things, of making them well and of making them beautiful; goodness and beauty were to the leaders of the movement synonymous terms.’

So wrote C. R. Ashbee (1863-1942), the designer who was instrumental in starting Essex House Press in 1898 as part of his larger Guild of Handicrafts (established 1886). With workmen from Kelmscott (and two Albion presses), Ashbee continued Morris’s ideals of a return to craftsmanship through co-operation and a meaningful engagement in work. Ashbee printed 83 books under the Essex House imprint, and this one (no. 273 of 350 copies) was the first to contain Ashbee’s own design type, Endeavour.