Rylands Blake project 5. The Century Guild Hobby Horse

The Century Guild Hobby Horse was the journal of the Century Guild of Arts and Crafts, a group which was founded in 1880-81, growing out of William Morris’s efforts in the decorative arts. A first issue of The Century Guild Hobby Horse, edited by A. H. Mackmurdo and published from Orpington, appeared in April 1884. This issue "No 1" had no successors. Another new sequence with the same title, again edited by A.H. Mackmurdo, but published from London, started in 1886. Issue No 1 appeared in January 1886 and the journal ran to a No 28, which appeared in October 1892. This in turn was succeeded by a journal titled The Hobby Horse, edited by Mackmurdo's one-time architectural pupil and partner, Herbert Percy Horne. Three issues appeared between 1893 and 1894.



In keeping with their interest in putting forth the best and most meaningful work in a form which would express their feelings about the necessity of fine craftsmanship, the editors decided to make their magazine attractive in appearance as well as in content. The Century Guild Hobby Horse is noteworthy for its freshness of approach to typography, its use of original illustrative material, and in the combination of stories, drawings by new artists, advanced poetry, and essays on music and other cultural aspects catching the fancy of the editors. Foreshadowing Morris’ active interest in designing for print, the editors commissioned a newly-designed type for the text of the magazine, and issued it in a large format, printed on handmade paper, with wrappers of new design.

 It was Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo, one of the founders of the Century Guild, and an admirer of Blake, who produced the first work which combined all the characteristics of Art Nouveau: the chair designed in 1881, and the second, the title page of his book Wren’s City Churches published in 1883--astonishing anticipations of Art Nouveau considering that they were made ten years before the style itself became widespread. It seems obvious that in his own work, Mackmurdo tried to incorporate some of the vitality and expressiveness he had found in Blake’s work, while keeping within the framework of fitness and functionalism to which all the followers of Morris had assented (Selz).

The journal had a good many references to Blake, and the frontispiece of the first issue is “obviously a pastiche of Blake motifs.”  We can trace the impact of Blake’s work on the later nineteenth century in successive issues of The Century Guild Hobby Horse

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Vol. I. London. 1886.

1. Facing p. 121: “Little Tom the Sailor”. A facsimile by William Muir.
2. pp. 140-154: Frederic Shields, “Some Notes on Dante Gabriel Rossetti”. The article also contains a first draft of the sonnet on Blake, given to Shields by Rossetti (see pages 144-145).
3. pp. 159-160: Herbert H. Gilchrist, “Nescio quae nugarum no. III: The ballad of Little Tom the Sailor”:

What a marvellous sample of typewriting is the Ballad written out with a brush, ... while as legible as ordinary types, every letter has naïve expression, capital letters flaunt capriciously down the page each giving a defiant little kick of its own. With all the charm of decorative fitness the print answers directly its purpose as a broadsheet.

Vol. II. London, 1887.

4. p. 29: “The Life Mask of William Blake.” By Herbert P. Horne (with photogravure reproduction).
5. Facing p. 112: On Homer [facsimile]. Keynes and Bentley both attribute this facsimile to William Muir. I disagree. Muir’s facsimile (1886) and that printed in The Century Guild Hobby Horse differ in many respects and are unlikely to derive from the same lithographic plate.
6. pp. 115-6: “Blake’s Sibylline Leaf On Homer and Virgil.” By Herbert P. Horne.
7. pp. 135-157: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, with an introductory note by the Editor [most likely Herbert P. Horne].

Vol. III. London. 1888.

8. Facing p. 108: Facsimiles of three of the illustrations by William Blake to the Pastorals of Virgil.
Vol. V. London. 1890.
9. pp. 82-9: The Book of Los, with an introduction by F. York Powell. [The first typographic edition.]

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Sources

G. E. Bentley, Jr., Blake Books (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977)

Peter Frost, “The Century Guild Hobby Horse and its founders.” The Book Collector, (1978), 348-360.

Lorraine Lively Hunt, The Century Guild Hobby Horse: a study of a magazine (University of North Carolina Ph.D., 1965)

Geoffrey Keynes, A bibliography of William Blake (New York: Grolier Club, 1921)

Peter Selz & Mildred Constantine, eds. Art Nouveau: Art and Design at the Turn of the Century; with articles by Greta Daniel, Alan M. Fern, Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Peter Selz. New, revised ed. (New York NY: Museum of Modern Art, 1975)
First published to accompany an exhibition (Museum of Modern Art, 1959).