May Morris, remarks in introduction to Collected Works, Vol. VII, Grettir the Strong


. . . We put forward this volume as the translation of an old story founded on facts, full of dramatic interest, and setting before people's eyes pictures of…

‘The town now lying ahead is a commonplace-looking little town of wood principally; but there are pretty-looking homesteads on some of the islands off it, and the bright green of their home-meads is a great relief to us after all the grey of the sea,…

‘. . . we rounded a low ragged headland presently and were in the firth and off a narrow bight, at the end of which was the trading-station of Djupivogur (Deepbay): half a dozen wooden roofs, a flagstaff and two schooners lying at anchor’ (IJ pp.…

‘So I have seen Iceland at last: I awoke from a dream of the Grange; which by the way was like some house at Queen’s Gate, to glare furiously at Magnússon who was clutching my arm and saying something, which as my senses gathered I found out to be an…

‘ . . . the islands themselves from the ferry as we ran north through the islands like Morris did on the way to Iceland with the last four basically being views of the north coast, as dramatic I suspect as when Morris passed that way’ (Martin Stott).