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First edition, one of 350 copies on paper, there were also eight copies on vellum; inscribed by the secretary of the Kelmscott Press, Sydney Carlyle Cockerell, to his sister on the preliminary blank, "To Olive J. Cockerell, from S.C.C. Octr, 1894". This copy was presented during the month of publication. Olive Juliet Cockerell (1869-1910) was an artist and illustrator trained in the Arts and Crafts school. She developed an interest in fairy stories and provided the illustrations to Anna Marie Diana Wilhelmina Pickering's Queen of the Goblins (published in 1892) and Mary de Morgan's The Windfairies (published in 1900). In 1906 she moved to the country to train to become a market gardener. Eventually she grew and sold fresh local fruit and vegetables in partnership with Helen Nussey, an early British welfare worker and writer on gardening. The Wood Beyond the World, written specifically for the Kelmscott Press, is "the first great fantasy novel ever written: the first of them all; all the others, Dunsany, Eddison, Pratt, Tolkien, Peake, Howard, et al., are successors to this great original" (Carter). Lin Carter, in introducing a reprint of the novel within the influential "Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series", simply called Morris "the man who invented fantasy". It is likely that Morris started writing the novel in November 1893. During the writing of the tale, he was conscious of the intention to print it at his press for the manuscript includes indications First edition, one of 350 copies on paper, there were also eight copies on vellum; inscribed by the secretary of the Kelmscott Press, Sydney Carlyle Cockerell, to his sister on the preliminary blank, "To Olive J. Cockerell, from S.C.C. Octr, 1894". This copy was presented during the month of publication. Olive Juliet Cockerell (1869-1910) was an artist and illustrator trained in the Arts and Crafts school. She developed an interest in fairy stories and provided the illustrations to Anna Marie Diana Wilhelmina Pickering's Queen of the Goblins (published in 1892) and Mary de Morgan's The Windfairies (published in 1900). In 1906 she moved to the country to train to become a market gardener. Eventually she grew and sold fresh local fruit and vegetables in partnership with Helen Nussey, an early British welfare worker and writer on gardening. The Wood Beyond the World, written specifically for the Kelmscott Press, is "the first great fantasy novel ever written: the first of them all; all the others, Dunsany, Eddison, Pratt, Tolkien, Peake, Howard, et al., are successors to this great original" (Carter). Lin Carter, in introducing a reprint of the novel within the influential "Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series", simply called Morris "the man who invented fantasy". It is likely that Morris started writing the novel in November 1893. During the writing of the tale, he was conscious of the intention to print it at his press for the manuscript includes indications of the positions of decorated initials and leaf ornaments for publication. As noted by Peterson, "the book was printed during the spring of 1894 but was not issued until the following autumn because of a delay in completing the frontispiece". READ MORE Large quarto. Original full limp vellum, spine lettered in gilt, edges untrimmed, green silk ties. Frontispiece by Edward Burne-Jones, ornamental initials and borders throughout. Printed in red and black in Chaucer type. Natural colour variance to vellum as usual, spine toned, lacking both rear ties, minor loss to front pastedown, minor foxing to edges and endpapers: a good copy. LeMire A-74.01; Peterson A27. Lin Carter, "The Fresh, Scrubbed, Morning World of William Morris" in William Morris, The Wood Beyond the World, 1969.

A fantasy novel considered one of the pre-modern examples of the genre.