William Morris, The Well at the World's End

Robert Boenig (Texas A&M University)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.07: English Writing and Culture of the Victorian Period, 1837-1901.
Vol. editors: Gillian Fenwick (University of Toronto), Grace Moore (University of Otago)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1896

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel
Romance

Resources

Published in 1896, The Well at the World's End is the longest of the remarkable series of eight prose romances that William Morris produced in the last decade of his life. Its plot is complex, but the psychology of its characters is even more complex. Though Morris's The Water of the Wondrous Isles (1897) relies more on medieval ideas about Courtly Love than does The Well at the World's End, the latter book is arguably the more chivalric, for at its center are the adventurous wanderings of a knight errant through a forest and wasteland where the marvelous may intrude on everyday life. Its hero, the prince Ralph of Upmeads, is engaged in a dual quest to rescue a maiden and find the Well at the World's End, a …

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

4402 words

Citation: Boenig, Robert. "The Well at the World's End". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 02 July 2007 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=21573, accessed 22 November 2024.]

Save this article