Kelmscott Manor relationship with its setting, especially its garden. The Manor is featured in Morris' work "News from Nowhere". It also appears in the background of "Water Willow", a portrait of his wife, Jane Morris, painted by Dante Gabriel Rossetti in 1871. After William Morris's death in 1896, the Manor continued to be occupied by his widow, Jane Morris (who purchased it in 1913) and later, his daughters. May Morris died in 1938 and bequeathed the house to Oxford University, on the basis the contents were preserved and the public were granted access. The University were unwilling to preserve the house as
Dante Gabriel Rossetti was integrated into the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood's artistic practice from the beginning (including that of Rossetti), with many paintings making direct literary references. For example, John Everett Millais' early work, "Isabella" (1849), depicts an episode from John Keats' "Isabella, or, the Pot of Basil" (1818). Rossetti was particularly critical of the gaudy ornamentation of Victorian gift books and sought to refine bindings and illustrations to align with the principles of the Aesthetic Movement. Rossetti's key bindings were designed between 1861 and 1871. He collaborated as a designer/illustrator with his sister, poet Christina Rossetti, on the first edition of "Goblin Market" (1862)