Foreword:

I am very glad that it is Mervyn Levy who has written this book. He has about him a certain grace and erudition which I am certain were the attributes of many of the designers and craftsmen about whom he writes. These attributes were certainly applicable to some of the men who were responsible, in the early days of Liberty's, for making its reputation.
Mervyn Levy has written a scholarly and attractive book about the fascinating period of design between the high point of William Morris's career and the somewhat murkier waters of 'Art Nouveau'.
Many volumes have been written about William Morris and about 'Art Nouveau'. The period between is not so well covered, and this book is therefore very welcome. At a time when so many famous designers and craftsmen were at work, it is strange that in some parts of Europe this special look, particularly in furniture, metal and fabrics, came somehow or other to be known as the Liberty Style. Today, I find it flattering and sometimes embarrassing that this should have been so because, in the present commercial and business climate, when large shops are judged mostly on the amount of profit they make and rather less on the excellence of their merchandise, it is perhaps not so easy as it was in the 1890s for a shop to exist successfully on buying and selling the work of innovating designers, however desirable this may be.
Nevertheless, the influence of the period about which Mervyn Levy writes is still discernible in some of the remoter corners of Liberty's, and the fact that there are still people called Liberty involved in the running of the place will, I hope, lend a certain edge and vitality to the history related here.