to weigh between the Golden Legend and the Troy book for reprinting: now I have borrowed a Recueil of the Histories of Troy (the Wynkyn de Worde of course) from Quaritch, and have no doubt that the G.L. is by far the most important book of the two: so I accept your kind offer with many thanks indeed, and will begin printing as soon as the type is free from the Glittering Plain, which I take it will be the first book printed in the regenerate type or Jenson-Morris.
"I inclose a specimen (over-inked) of as far as we have gone at present. I hope you admire its literature—due of course to the compositor. Kind regards to the young she-scribe that is to be."
The idea of becoming a publisher as well as a printer was one which had not yet occurred to him. An experiment was talked of later, but never carried out, of dispensing with a publisher by printing off a book and then selling the whole edition by auction. For "The Golden Legend" an agreement for publication was entered into with Mr. Bernard Quaritch. "I don't mind having a publisher," Morris said, "so long as he has nothing whatever to do with any question except purely business ones. As to the 'prophet' I want none of him: I only want not to have to drop much, say not above ₤100." On this footing it was arranged. The agreement, signed on the 11th of September, 1890, provides that the publisher shall pay for the expenses of paper, printing, and binding, and that Morris is to have sole and absolute control over choice of paper and type, size of the reprint, and selection of the printer. The last-named provision indicates that Morris was then still uncertain whether to start a press of his own or to have his new type printed from by some existing firm of printers. The following two letters to Ellis continue the details of the enterprise.
