Rev. of Another Book that Never Was: William Morris, Charles Gere, The House of the Wolfings by Peter Stansky (The Book Club of California, 1998 ) 56 pp, $85.

by Thomas J. Tobin

	Another Book That Never Was is a fine press book about a fine press book, wherein the aesthetics of the physical object harmonize well with the subject matter to hand. The title alludes to Joseph Dunlap’s 1970 The Book That Never Was, about the plans of William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones to create an illustrated edition of the ‘Cupid and Psyche’ poems from Morris’s The Earthly Paradise. In like fashion, Stansky focuses on the relationship between Morris and his illustrator Charles March Gere in bringing an illustrated House of the Wolfings almost to fruition.
	The volume itself is a beautifully-crafted example of well-thought restraint, producing an austerely pleasing result. The boards are covered in Iris cloth, one of Morris’s quieter patterns; one of the chief pleasures of this volume is that nothing is loudly done or overwrought. The pages are laid out with generous margins, and the text is evenly balanced against the illustrations. When one thinks of Morrisiana, especially of the Kelmscott Press, one calls to mind the ‘controlled riot’ of design; Another Book That Never Was achieves the same balance, but in a cleanly minimalist fashion, with Gere’s illustrations provided in most cases without Morris’s decorative borders. The text is not embellished with decorations, save the occasional section-opening ochre-and-black frieze, while the use of Cloister gives a round, open quality to the page that is echoed in the generous allocation of one page for each illustration. The text in itself is inviting, and seems slightly at odds with the fractious story it tells; however, Stansky employs an enjoyable technique in relating the story.
	In true meta-textual fashion, Stansky first discusses how he came to have an interest in the subject at all, through the most pleasant of introductions: by his receiving a gift of four of Gere’s drawings for the project. Stansky introduces Gere to the reader not by immediately plunging into the circumstances of the relationship between Morris and Gere: neither does Stansky begin with Gere’s birth and upbringing and tediously labor toward the 1890s and the House of the Wolfings project. Instead, Stansky mirrors the conservative physical harmony and balance of the book with his strategy for telling the story: he begins with an episode from Gere’s years as a student, then relates Gere’s election to the Royal Academy in 1939, then swings his pendulum back to Gere’s drawings executed in his twenties, then forward to Gere’s illustrations of the 1910s and ‘20s, and so on, back and forth, slowly narrowing in on the 1890s and The House of the Wolfings. The story Stansky puts forward tells us much about the perfectionist Morris, whose comments on what seem minor points in Gere’s drawings take on added vehemence and weight when considered as ‘friendly’ criticism: that Gere continued to work with Morris in creating more designs for the intended book may be taken as a testament to Gere’s faith in Morris’ great genius and attunement to the ethos of mediæval art.
	As a single note of discord in the harmony of the book, it may be pointed out that the illustrations are printed in what appears to be the order in which they were to have been printed in The House of the Wolfings. This has the unfortunate effect of forcing the reader to flip forward and back within the text to find the images referred to in textual notes; a more pleasing arrangement would have placed illustrations nearer to their textual referents. Stansky may, however, have been insistent on the order of the illustrations because of his stated aim that his book might eventually inspire an edition of The House of the Wolfings containing Gere’s illustrations, as had been planned so long ago.
	Only 350 copies of Another Book That Never Was were printed; it sold out during the Book Club of California’s members-only offering. However, the BCC allows visitors to examine its copy, and many libraries will lend their copies. I close with a partial listing of holdings: University of Arizona, University of San Francisco, Los Angeles Public Library, Denver Public Library, University of Iowa, University of Idaho, Indiana University, University of Kentucky, Louisiana State, Boston Athenæum, Harvard, Princeton, Cornell, University of Vermont, and University of Madison–Wisconsin. Speak to your librarian and borrow a copy of this excellent book.

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