 In the last nine years of his life , Morris wrote a series of imaginative fictions usually referred to as the " prose romances " . These novels – including The Wood Beyond the World and The Well at the World 's End – have been credited as important milestones in the history of fantasy fiction , because , while other writers wrote of foreign lands , or of dream worlds , or the future ( as Morris did in News from Nowhere ) , Morris 's works were the first to be set in an entirely invented fantasy world . These were attempts to revive the genre of medieval romance , and written in imitation of medieval prose . Morris 's prose style in these novels has been praised by Edward James , who described them as " among the most lyrical and enchanting fantasies in the English language . " 
