FARMINGTON — John Rosenwald, scholar, teacher and collector, will speak on “The Most Amazing Man of the Nineteenth Century,” an overview of the work of William Morris, at 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 17, in the North Dining Hall at University of Maine at Farmington Olsen Student Center, 111 South St.

Morris was a Pre-Raphaelite painter, a poet, the creator of a British home decoration firm, an early campaigner for socialism, preserver of the world’s oldest dated Persian carpet, writer of utopian and fantasy fiction, and then, in his final six years, founder of the press that produced the world’s very finest printed books, most notably the “Kelmscott Chaucer,” according to a news release from the university.

Rosenwald is Professor Emeritus at Beloit College and Fulbright Professor of American and British Culture at China’s Fudan, Zhejiang, and Nankai Universities. His talk, the first in series of lectures sponsored by the Shiretown Bookers, will include fabrics designed by Morris as well as books by and about Morris.

For more information, contact Reid Byers at reidbyers@gmail.com or 609-306-1002.