Golden Wings

William Morris

General Description

Date: 1856
Genre: short story

Scholarly Commentary

Guest Editor: PC Fleming

Introduction

This is the last of William Morris’s stories in The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, and one of several with a medieval setting. This fairly conventional story features a knight’s tournament and a castle siege.

The most notable feature of this story is the first-person narrator, who is killed in the final scene. Lines earlier in the story — such as “not while I was in the body at least” (735) — prepare the reader for this ending. The narration from beyond the grave adds a supernatural element to this otherwise straightforward tale, and links it to Morris’s first story in the Magazine, The Story of the Unknown Church, which employs a similar narrative trope.

Printing History

First printed in The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine , December, 1856.

Electronic Archive Edition: 1
Source File: Morris019.raw.xml