Pencil sketch illustration by Edward Burne-Jones for “The Ring given to Venus” for William Morris’s projected edition of The Earthly Paradise, 1865-68. The Earthly Paradise is an epic poem structured as a frame story, similar to Geoffrey Chaucer’s ‘Canterbury Tales’. It tells the story of a group of Norsemen who have fled a plague in Europe in search of the mythical earthly paradise. Eventually they come to a land where the inhabitants still worship the ancient Greek gods. They decide to stay here and each month the wanderers and the city elders exchange tales. ‘The Earthly Paradise’ contains the tales from a whole year, comprising twenty-four stories. This illustration accompanied the story for the month of October and concerns a man who on his wedding- day unwittingly gave his wedding ring to the Goddess Venus.
