KELMSCOTT PRESS. MORRIS, William & WYATT, A.J. (trans.) ~ The Tale of Beowulf.
One of 300 paper copies (a further 8 copies were printed on vellum). Elaborate woodcut title page with border, borders, three-quarter and half borders Border and 176 three-, six- and eight-line initials, all by William Morris, engraved on wood by W.H. Hooper et al, the initial letters then being electroplated, woodcut press device on colophon, leaf paragraph marks. Printed in red and black in Troy and Chaucer types on hand-made Batchelor Perch paper. 4to., original limp vellum with blue silk ties, yapp edges, title in gilt in Golden type on the spine. With the errata slip inserted loose: "Note to Reader. In this translation of Beowulf, the final ed, where the e is not elided by the printer, is intended to be pronounced in every case." Vellum with crinkling and marking, mainly to the lower cover, endpapers and edges a little browned but generally a very good copy.
Morris began a translation from ‘the Old English tongue’ of what he considered to be "the first and the best poem of the English race" based on a paraphrase by Alfred Wyatt, the Anglo-Saxon scholar who helped him with the translation. He wrote in his diary after only 4 days at work: 'Finished the first lot of Beo: about 700 lines. Wrote Wyatt". The two then collaborated and this wonderful translation and printing of the first great work of English Literature appeared just 2 years later.
The borders used for Beowulf appeared in just one other Kelmscott book, Jason.