![Art and Socialism: a Lecture delivered [January 23rd, 1884] before the Secular Society of Leicester.](https://www.mcnaughtans.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/8391_1.jpg)
![Art and Socialism: a Lecture delivered [January 23rd, 1884] before the Secular Society of Leicester.](https://www.mcnaughtans.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/8391_2.jpg)
£750
FIRST EDITION, LARGE-PAPER COPY, 16mo, pp. 72, [16, ads]. Largely unopened in original yellow wrappers printed in red. Some light soiling. Wrappers sunned and soiled, text-block almost loose, spine with residue from having been sometime bound into a volume, a bit of consequent loss to rear wrapper. Ownership inscription of Henry Norman, London, 1884 to series half-title.
The especially rare large-paper issue of this ephemeral publication of a lecture by William Morris on the connections between art and socialism - an important summary of his thought, though Morris himself though the talk inferior to his 'Useful Work v. Useless Toil', given the same year. The regular-paper issue, in pink wrappers, was sold at 3 pence and contained a note that 'a few large paper copies have been pulled on hand-made Dutch paper'; this is one of those few, printed on Van Gelder paper, bound in yellow wrappers, and priced at 1 shilling.
The publication was no. 7 in the Leek Bijou Reprints series, a group of small volumes made to promote free thought under the auspices of William Larner Sugden, an architect in Leek, Staffordshire and supporter of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings that Morris co-founded. The initials in the imprint are Sugden's and his collaborator Ethelbert Edward Minton.
