 William Morris was a prolific writer of poetry , fiction , essays , and translations of ancient and medieval texts . His first poems were published when he was 24 years old , and he was polishing his final novel , The Sundering Flood , at the time of his death . His daughter May 's edition of Morris 's Collected Works ( 1910 – 1915 ) runs to 24 volumes , and two more were published in 1936 . 
