Aubrey Beardsley The Man and His Work (#1)

London; (1928): John Lane the Bodley Head Ltd. Limited Edition. Quarto. Limited to only 100 copies. The present copy is # 1 and unopened. Portrait frontispiece, engraved pictorial title page and full page illustrations which include a special section of those illustrations suppressed for the Yellow Book. xiv, 109 pp. (2) which includes an engraved tail piece and a key to the dates of works by Beardsley according to the style of his signature. While Beardsley's life was cut short at only 25 years, he made a name for himself. Among his works, he illustrated an edition of Malory's Morte d'Arthur (1893-1894), and in 1894 he became notorious with the publication of his illustrations to the English version of Oscar Wilde's Salome and the appearance of the first issue of The Yellow Book, a quarterly periodical of which he was art editor and more. His style is highly distinctive, a blending of grotesque humor with a sense of morbid wickedness, but with erotic beauty and style. He was a leading figure in the aesthetic movement. Bound in white cloth, top edge gilt, paper spine label lettered in black with a new label laid in at the rear, some toning to endpapers, binding soiled, spine darkened, fore-edges a bit dusty or soiled, internally bright and fresh free from foxing or any markings, no names or bookplates. (Inventory #: 023929)