The House Of The Wolfings

by William Morris

Overview

The first of William Morris's great fantastic romances is a translation of the old Norse saga, The House of the Wolfings.

Of this tale, The Encyclodedia of Fantasy wrote: "The first step toward the characteristic large-scale fantasies which have had such influence on the genre . . . is The House of the Wolfings. Here the setting is quasi-historical: a European Saxon community is resisting the decadent advances of late Imperial Rome. The romantic-supernatural story contains a large admixture of verse."

Indeed, Morris's chief contribution to the book is his beautiful prose and poetry, for his version of the story is actually a collaboration with Norse scholar Eirikr Magnusson, who provided a literal translation of the original text, which Morris then reset as prose and poetry.

Morris's version of The House of the Wolfings has influenced generations of writers, including J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and countless hundreds more.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789357484336
Publisher:	Double 9 Books
Publication date:	03/01/2023
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	684 KB

About the Author

William Morris was born in 1834 in Walthamstow, England. He was one of the great all-rounders, such as a poet, painter, author, translator, political scholar, social reformer, designer, and publisher. The organisations and movements he established ranged from the Arts and Crafts Movement to the Socialist Federation to the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. He started his writing career at Oxford University, where he contributed to and funded the Oxford and Cambridge Magazine. After the Socialist League moved too far from Morris's brand of freedom socialism for him to stay a part of it, he dedicated himself to writing. Initially, these were stories of ancient Germanic legends, and then "Here Be Dragons" became a series of completely fantasy novels, beginning with The Wood Beyond the World and also The Well at the World's End.