A Dream of John Ball; And, a King's Lesson
1898
A gorgeously wrought time slip into the summer of 1381, where a modern dreamer awakens in the Kentish countryside among the gathering hordes of the Peasants' Revolt. William Morris transports himself (and us) back to an England seething with discontent: laborers who have survived the Black Death and refuse any longer to accept a system that binds them to the land like chattel. He meets the fiery priest John Ball, whose radical preaching of equality has stirred the countryside, and fights alongside common men preparing to march on London. Part utopian vision, part passionate political argument, this is Morris at his most personal, working through his socialist convictions against the vivid canvas of medieval rebellion. The second tale, 'A King's Lesson,' extends this meditation on power and justice. Written with the lyrical intensity Morris brought to everything, these stories ache with a longing for a world where human dignity is not crushed beneath the heel of lords and bailiffs. For readers who believe literature can be a weapon and a dream.
