凯尔姆斯格特书坊是威廉·莫里斯(William Morris, 1834-1859)在生命的最后六年创办的私人印书坊。书坊崇尚从字体设计、排版印刷到书籍装订全手工的生产方式，致力于借助复古的风格装帧与插图绘制生产出19世纪的中世纪手抄本书籍。凯尔姆斯格特书坊系莫里斯退出社会主义者团体后创办，众多学者都将他开办书坊、沉迷制作精美书籍的实践视作政治上受挫后的逃避。本文认为，莫里斯创立书坊并非出于小资产阶级消遣性的赏玩目的，通过书籍的生产活动，他试图实现“愉悦劳动”这一对社会主义社会理想形式的期待。

莫里斯重视书籍、墙纸、挂画样式的装饰性艺术，他认为正是这类可以直接在官能上引起感触的艺术才能更好地培育人们的审美趣味与理想。因而，在书坊语境中，莫里斯并不看重书籍的文本意义，他更重视作为艺术品的精美书籍。莫里斯认为这种从日常生活中生发的审美冲动可以激发出改革社会的愿想与力量，从而实现审美理想与政治、社会行动的连接。莫里斯关于社会改革的构想，建立在促进审美趣味的基础上，美好的书籍、舒适的房屋既可以启发人们的革命意识，同时又是乌托邦社会的理想图景。在莫里斯的乌托邦幻想中，异化劳动被消除后，人们的劳作像创造艺术品一般快乐，劳动既可以让人获得精神的陶冶，又可以实现个体价值。

基于上述理解，本文从以下三个方面展开论述：第一部分“寻找理想之书：莫里斯的印刷历险”主要考察莫里斯的书籍生产活动，借助书信、报纸等一手文献资料，分析书坊的字体风格所蕴含的哥特式复兴艺术理念与莫里斯对于中世纪审美风格的崇拜。第二部分“书籍中的审美空间”聚焦于书坊制作的《乔叟作品集》，着重论述书坊如何在书籍制作中将作为阅读物的书籍转译为作为艺术品的书籍。这部分通过分析《乔叟作品集》中插图的图像功能和艺术观念呈现莫里斯的审美理想，书籍不仅是承载信息的物质实体，它还是具有审美潜能的独立艺术形式。第三部分“书籍中的政治空间”重点分析书坊版本的《乌有乡消息》，主要关注书坊如何通过图像表达与文本叙述的互动来描述美学与政治双重面向的乌托邦想象。

In the last six years of his life, William Morris (1834-1859) founded the Kelmscott Press, a private printing house dedicated to reviving the integrity and beauty of the book arts. At the press, Morris labored to create stunning new limited editions of his previously published works in the elaborate style of the first master printers of late fifteenth century. Since it was after Morris left the Socialist League that he established the Kelmscott Press, his late-life venture into “slow-publishing” has prompted many critics to question the connection between his politics and aesthetics. The Kelmscott Press is figures as a fundamentally apolitical enterprise and a source of unashamed enjoyment to the designer. However, in this study, I argue that Morris did not found the Kelmscott press for the purpose of petite bourgeoisie entertainment. Through the production of books, he has tried to realize the expectation of work-become-art, the ideal form of socialist society.

Morris attaches great importance to decorative arts in the form of books, wallpapers and tapestries, which could invoke sensational affect directly so as to better cultivate people’s aesthetic taste and utopian ideal. Therefore, Morris situates the Kelmscott books in the context of artistic works instead of textual object. Morris believes that the everyday aesthetic affect can stimulate the desire and power to reform the society, so as to realize the connection between aesthetic ideals and political and social actions. Morris's conception of social reform is based on the promotion of aesthetic taste. Beautiful books and comfortable houses can inspire people's revolutionary consciousness and at the same time they represent the ideal picture of a utopian society. In Morris' utopian fantasy, after alienated labor is eliminated, people's labor is as happy as creating works of art. Labor can not only give people spiritual edification, but also realize individual value.

According to the understanding above, I completed my thesis from three aspects below: The first chapter “Search for the Ideal Book: The Typographical Adventures of William Morris” explores Morris' book production activities, and analyzes the Gothic Renaissance art concept contained in the font style of the Press as well as Morris's worship of the medieval aesthetics with the help of letters, newspapers and other primary sources. In the second chapter “The Aesthetic Space of Books”, I turn my attention to the Kelmscott Press edition of Chaucer, exploring the ways in which the bibliographical meaning of books is emphasized by the material signification of Kelmscott books. I represent Morris's aesthetic ideal by analyzing the iconographical function and artistic concept of the illustrations in Chaucer. Books are not only material entities presenting textual code, but also a kind of independent and enlightened art form. The proceeding chapter “The Political Space of Books” will, I hope, demonstrate that how the Press constitutes Morris’s utopian idealism through the deployment of double perceptual codes in the Kelmscott Press edition of News from Nowhere: the linguistic codes and the bibliographical codes.

The Kelmscott project as a whole is Morris’s attempt to connect the aesthetic ideal and socialism practice. In Morris’s conception of socialist politics, art mediates the opposition between aesthetic ideal and utopian socialism by cultivating a conscious desire for a society of beauty and equality.