Beschreibung:

72 1501 Beardsley A Wilde O 72/1501 [Beardsley, A.]. Wilde, O. Salomé. A tragedy in one act. Introd. R. Ross. London/ New York, The Bodley Head/ John Lane Company, 1912, XVIII,(6),65,(2)p., 16 plates (incl. cover design, title, plate-index) and orig. richly gilt cl. by AUBREY BEARDSLEY, t.e.g. - Covers sl. stained/ discoloured at fore-edge margin; spine-ends trifle worn. Otherwise fine. = Lasner 59D; Taylor p.96f: "(...) the illustrations for Salomé probably represent the peak of Beardsley's career (...)"; Mason 355. English translation by Alfred Douglas; the first French ed. was published in Paris, 1893. Ray, The illustrator and the book in England 1790-1914, 315: "If Le Morte Darthur made Beardsley known, his designs for the first edition in English of Wilde's Salomé made him notorious, and it remains the book of which most people think when his name is mentioned. (...) When Salomé was published, the critics made their expected protest, though Wilde was their primary target, and relations between writer and artist became strained. But even if Beardsley offers amiable caricatures of Wilde in "Enter Herodias" and two other designs, it is mistaken to think that he was contemptuous of the text he was illustrating. It moved his imagination as did few other subjects." In the first Beardsley illustrated edition of 1894 two drawings and the cover design were cancelled and several plates were bowdlerized. SEE ILLUSTRATION PLATE XXXVIII.