The Wood Beyond the World was initially published in 1894. It was republished in 1969 as the third in the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, and the first of several Morris titles that series editor Lin Carter revived. The lovely cover art is by Gervasio Gallardo, who illustrated many of the covers in the series.

Like the other Morris novels The Wood Beyond the World is written in an older style of English perhaps similar to that of Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, written in the fifteenth century. Some people may find the language quaint, but I found it annoying. E. R. Eddison uses Elizabethan-style English, but his work is flowing and poetic, whereas Morris’s writing seems stilted and false.

The first Morris book I read was The Well at the World’s End, which took me several attempts to get into, again because of the language. The Well at the World’s End, however, Morris’s magnum opus, is redeemed by its length and complexity and the mystical significance of the well in the book’s title. The Wood Beyond the World doesn’t have these saving graces.

In his introduction, Carter speaks of The Wood Beyond the World in very positive terms as founding the modern genre of epic fantasy. However, there is more that is magical and fantastic in the work of Eddison, Dunsany, or Cabell, early fantasy writers who closely followed Morris. The Wood Beyond the World reads much like Morris’s medieval romances that preceded it. There is little that is genuinely fantastical in the book.

If Carter is right about the historical significance of The Wood Beyond the World, then it earns its place close to the start of the series. However, Morris, and this book particularly, is not my favourite fantasy.

I am tempted to say that the works of William Morris are my guilty pleasure, but that would require me to feel guilty about reading them. It would also require them to be books worthy of feeling guilty about liking. Neither of those things are true. There is something about the way William Morris writes and crafts a story that grabs a hold of me.

William Morris was one of the first people to write fantastical stories set in entirely invented worlds back in the late 19th century, and it thus considered one of the great fathers of the fantasy genre. His works are not grand in scope let fantasies of today and his worldbuilding is not deep and complicated like fantasies of today, but that does not stop Mr. Morris. Morris was attempting to hearken back to the tradition of medieval prose romances like the stories of King Arthur, and his works reflect this in their design and his prose. His stories always have a sense of uncertainty as to where it will go next, and that's because Morris was just winging it most of the time. He never set out and planned the world and what was in it or what it was called, but rather he crafted the world as his characters moved through it. This was, again, to capture that spirit of knights having adventures in far off dim lands of uncertain location and nature. Morris's prose reflect this in that it is deliberately archaic and medieval. It's not too much of a struggle to get through, but it is jarring sometimes. It accomplishes a purpose, though: the language helps to give the illusion that this is not a work written by some guy in the 1890s but rather a very old tale straight out of the middle ages.

His works are imbued with a constant sense of magic without being weighed down by pesky things like rules or explanations. Like tales from medieval times, Morris's stories often feature magical people who are somewhat removed from the rest of the characters, whose powers cannot be truly explained or accounted for. Magic in his stories is used sparingly but effectively.

This book is much shorter than the other one I've read, "The Well at the World's End", but it packs a good punch. It isn't hampered down by any of the pacing issues that plagued the latter half of that other story, but I also wouldn't call this one better. It's still a fantastic story filled with magic and excitement, but "The Well at the World's End" had a lot more of that stuff.

Another thing I love about the works of William Morris is that he seems to be way ahead of his time when it comes to the portrayal of women in his books. The love interest usually conforms to the mold of "fair young maiden with a propensity for blushing and love" that we find in most medieval knight tales, but they are also capable in their own right. The woman here, despite the fact that she never gets a name and is always referred to as "the maid" (then again, I don't believe anyone in this story has a name besides the main character), is a wise strong woman who actually ends up solving most of their problems. Both of the love interests in "The Well at the World's End" were also strong, capable women. Of course, their portrayal is far from perfect by today's standards, but in a time where most male authors couldn't portray women for the life of them, it's refreshing to find this quality in Morris.

In short, I love William Morris's works because they are amazing tales of love, adventure and magic that feel like they leapt straight out of the pages of King Arthur, except better.

The Wood Beyond the World is a strange book, even by the standards of pre-Tolkien fantasy. The best way I can describe it is that it feels like an elongated version of a disjointed fairy tale. The plot meanders. After the climax, we're treated to a series of adventures that have little to do with anything that came before. Things that establish the characters and setting are all but forgotten by the end. We don't really know what's going on for most of the story, and even after the events of the off-screen climax are related to us, we still don't really know where most of the characters came from or clearly understand their motives. There also doesn't seem to be a clear theme tying everything together, other than perhaps Morris's surprisingly frank (by 19th century standards) version of courtly love. These are not necessarily fatal flaws, but taken all together, they leave the reader with little to connect to. Why, then, did I read this all the way through?

The prose. William Morris's prose style is a thing of wonder--it's very archaic but simple enough that it doesn't take too much adjustment to be able to understand it. (It almost reads like Anglish). It's completely different from other early fantasists--MacDonald wrote verbose Victorian prose, and Dunsany and Edison wrote ornate Elizabethan prose. Morris's style is closer to Thomas Mallory, and powerfully evokes a medieval atmosphere as a result. (It's clear that Tolkien took notes.) This also makes the strange plotting easier to digest--of course it's clunky; it's not supposed to be like a modern novel.

Yet, however wonderful I think the prose is, this ultimately isn't a story that left much of an impact on me, and I doubt it will do so for others either. Unlike forgotten classics such as Phantastes or The Gods of Pegana, I feel that this book is ultimately a historical curiosity only of interest to students of the fantasy genre's history. Though Lewis and Tolkien's high praise of The Well at the World's End makes me want to at least give that book a try before I judge Morris too harshly.

The story is good, sadly enough not that captivating as I had hoped it would be.

It's horribly boringly written. It feels like William Morris was trying to be very medieval and epic, and... *sigh* it wasn't poetic and beautiful, it was boring, tedious, irritating.
The story itself... A boy is married to a beautiful woman who is unfaithful and he loses everything, and goes away and never comes back. He finds an even more beautiful woman, and becomes a king of a faraway place, and... *sigh* *sigh* *sigh*

I kept expecting the heroine to be a villain, and the villain to be a heroine, and I really cannot understand why --- killed ---, and... I mean they didn't even love that one.
I don't understand why all these people loved this book, or story. It's seriously just a very bad version of fairytales, especially those from [b:The Arabian Nights|93101|The Arabian Nights|Anonymous|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1617241455l/93101._SY75_.jpg|859375]. Read those instead.
Oh, and the style reminds me of [a:Edgar Rice Burroughs|10885|Edgar Rice Burroughs|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1207155710p2/10885.jpg] (Read him instead)

I don't like anything about this book... well... the design is nice, I suppose.

The hero is irritating, boring milksop, full of himself. I think we are supposed to see him as something positive.
The heroine is... I suppose there's some promise in her.
The witch mistress is... mostly confusing. I seriously don't understand why she is supposed to be so scary, when she never really does anything scary. She just says things and Looks. Frankly, the only reason we have to believe she's evil is that the heroine says she is.
The prince is an a-hole, though we are to believe he's a good guy. He is totally fine raping the heroine. It's not rape if she is a slave. It's not rape if she says "yes", even though you threaten to harm her if she refuses. It's not rape if she's pretty.
The racist caricature is basically nothing more than that.
Nobody has any character development, or any consequences for their actions. I don't think William Morris really understood fairytales at all.
The way the people choose their kings is... WTF?
I am kind of impressed by the Bear People episode.