Today (28 August) is the birthday of the artist and designer Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1898).Burne-Jo

Today (28 August) is the birthday of the artist and designer Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1898).

Burne-Jones is perhaps best known in the book world for his friendship and working relationship with William Morris. He illustrated a number of books printed at Morris’s Kelmscott Press, including what is considered to be its magnum opus, the Kelmscott Chaucer (1896), for which Burne-Jones supplied 87 woodcut illustrations. 

The Chaucer took four years to produce and, with Morris’s health in decline, Burne-Jones often worked late into the night. ‘If we live to finish it’, Burne-Jones wrote, 'it will be like a pocket cathedral’.

The Alexander Turnbull Library, Rare Books and Fine Printing Collection, holds seventeen books illustrated by Burne-Jones and a complete run of Kelmscott Press publications.

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The works of Geoffrey Chaucer. Hammersmith, Middlesex: Printed by William Morris at the Kelmscott Press, 1896, Alexander Turnbull Library, fRPr KELM CHAU 1896.