Morris Marbles — Edward Webster Morris

Review by Robin H. Ashby

Morris Marbles — Oxford's Paper Marbler, Edward Webster Morris (1842–1919) is a work of historical recovery as much as a book about marbling. It reconstructs the life and practice of a Victorian craftsman whose work has largely been forgotten, and in doing so it illuminates something important about the social and commercial world in which marbling once operated.

The research is careful and the writing is measured. This is not a how-to book — it is a biography of a craft and a craftsman, and it rewards the reader who comes to it with patience. For those of us interested in the history of marbling as a trade, as a livelihood, and as a form of knowledge passed between practitioners, it is an invaluable document.