News from Nowhere by William Morris

First published: 1890, as New from Nowhere: Or, An Epoch of Rest, Being Some Chapters from a Utopian Romance

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Utopian

Time of plot: Late nineteenth century and twenty-first century

Locale: London

Principal characters

• Guest, the narrator
• Richard “Dick” Hammond, a boatman
• Old Hammond, Dick’s great-grandfather
• Clara, Dick’s fiancé
• Ellen, a young woman whom Guest finds attractive

The Story:

One evening after a public meeting and political discussion, the narrator returns by train to his home in the London suburb of Hammersmith. When he wakes the next morning from a deep sleep and goes for swim in the Thames River, he is amazed to find that the industrial buildings have been transformed into a pastoral landscape. Encountering a boatman named Dick, who is dressed in simple but attractive fourteenth-century-style garb, he begins to question him and realizes that he has been transported to an England of the twenty-first century.

Dick takes the narrator, whom he calls Guest, to breakfast in the Guest House at Hammersmith, which resembles a medieval hall. There they meet Robert (Bob), the weaver, and Boffin, the dustman, who asks Guest many questions. A pleasant woman named Annie serves their food. After breakfast, Guest and Dick travel by horse carriage to visit Dick’s great-grandfather, Old Hammond, who lives by the British Museum in the Bloomsbury district of London. As they ride through London, Guest marvels at the open-air markets, the attractive architecture, and the wooded areas and gardens that have replaced the tenements and industrial buildings of the nineteenth century.

Guest observes the playful children, and Dick tells him that they do not attend school but learn as their curiosity leads them. Guest and Dick stop at one of the small shops, and Guest receives an elaborately carved pipe from two polite children who are tending the shop. As when he had first tried to pay Dick, Guest finds that money is not exchanged because it is unnecessary in this society. Guest also discovers that there are no prisons, since everyone is honest and has an occupation.

When they arrive at the square in front of the British Museum, Dick escorts Guest to the living quarters of his great-grandfather, Old Hammond. A young woman named Clara appears. She and Dick, who are obviously very much attracted to each other, retire to the upstairs room. Old Hammond explains to Guest that the couple had been married, had two children, and had grown apart, but that they are getting back together. In this new England, Nowhere, there is no such thing as divorce because the courts are unable to enforce “a contract of passion or sentiment.”

Guest and Old Hammond talk for some time. Because of Old Hammond’s advanced years, he can answer many of Guest’s questions about the striking changes that have occurred in England since the late nineteenth century. He tells Guest about the freer and more equal relationships between men and women, the less structured education of children, and the fresh and new appearance of London and its environs after the “big murky places” that were “centres of manufacture” had been removed. Old Hammond explains to Guest how people left London for country villages that became peaceful, thriving communities.

Many of Guest’s questions relate to the way government operates. Old Hammond tells him that formal governmental institutions no longer exist because the people live and work in harmony with nature and themselves. The two men also speak about labor, production, and trade. Old Hammond recalls how the new order came about after an uprising of the people overthrew the government.

In the evening, Dick and Clara drive Guest back to Hammersmith Guest House, where they have dinner and spend the night. The next morning, the three of them begin a journey by boat up the Thames River. Their destination is an area past Oxford where they plan to work at the hay harvest. As they travel, they observe the beautiful landscape with cottages and people working in the fields, orchards, and forests. They make several stops, first at Hampton Court, the former Tudor royal palace, which is preserved as a museum. The first evening they lodge at Runnymede with an old man who is nostalgic for past times, and his granddaughter, a beautiful, vivacious woman named Ellen.

After a second day observing the sights along the river, the trio spend the night with Walter Allen, one of Dick’s friends, who regretfully reports that an unusual altercation between two men led to a murder. On the third day, they stop to look at a house being built of stone with sculptured reliefs. At Wallingford, where they eat lunch, they talk with an old man, Henry Morsom, about arts and handicrafts. As they leave again, Ellen catches up with them in a boat. Guest, who finds Ellen very attractive, joins Ellen in her boat, while Dick and Clara continue in theirs.

As the two couples continue up the Thames, Guest and Ellen have a chance to observe the beautiful June landscape. Ellen asks many questions about the state of things in the nineteenth century and about the history of the river. When they reach their destination on the upper Thames, the travelers are greeted by a crowd of haymakers. Ellen takes Guest to an old stone barn and together they explore the simple beauty of its architecture and sparse furnishings. Guest reflects on the contrasts between the past, present, and future. Ellen rejoices in her love for the earth, nature, and the seasons.

Ellen and Guest go to dinner with the haymakers in a church that is festively decorated with flowers. Suddenly, Guest realizes that he has become invisible to Dick, Clara, and Ellen. He walks down the road and encounters a decrepit old man. He himself seems to be enveloped in a black cloud, and when he wakes up he is back in his familiar house in his own century. He concludes that he had experienced a vision rather than a dream, and that he should continue to strive to communicate to others the ideals of Nowhere.

Bibliography

Clutton-Brock Arthur. William Morris. New York: Parkstone Press, 2007. A biography chronicling Morris’s multifaceted career, including his work as a prose writer and poet and as a proponent of good design, craftsmanship, and architecture.

Faulkner, Peter. Against the Age: An Introduction to William Morris. Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1980. A concise discussion of Morris’s wide-ranging interests and works. Places News from Nowhere in the context of Morris’s other writings and activities.

Kirchhoff, Frederick. William Morris. Boston: Twayne, 1979. A study of Morris that concentrates on his literary works. News from Nowhere is discussed within the context of his socialist political views.

Latham, David, ed. Writing on the Image: Reading William Morris. Buffalo, N.Y.: University of Toronto Press, 2007. Several of this book’s essays analyze News from Nowhere. Includes “News from Nowhere as Autoethnography: A Future History of ’Home Colonization’” and “To Live in the Present: News from Nowhere and the Representation of the Present in Late Victorian Utopian Fiction.”

Le Bourgeois, John Y. Art and Forbidden Fruit: Hidden Passion in the Life of William Morris. Cambridge, England: Lutterworth Press, 2006. An analysis of Morris’s life and poetry, describing his attachment to his sister, Emma, who was a source of inspiration for his work.

Silver, Carole. The Romance of William Morris. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1982. A study of Morris’s prose romances, with a chapter on News from Nowhere.