Beschreibung:

BEARDSLEY, AUBREY, illustrator. 1872-1898. Salome. A Tragedy in One Act: Translated from the French of Oscar Wilde... London: Elkin Matthews and John Lane, 1894. 8vo (205 x 145 mm). Frontispiece, pictorial title-page and list of illustrations, 9 plates and tailpiece, all by Aubrey Beardsley, 16 pp publisher's catalogue dated January 1894 at end. Publisher's blue cloth, gilt, Beardsley's device to covers, some fading to spine. Provenance: Frederick Walter Fell Clark (armorial bookplate). FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH, AND THE FIRST WITH BEARDSLEY'S ILLUSTRATIONS, 500 copies printed for England. According to Peter Raby, "Beardsley gave the text its first true public and modern performance, placing it firmly within the 1890s – a disturbing framework for the dark elements of cruelty and eroticism, and of the deliberate ambiguity and blurring of gender, which he released from Wilde's play as though he were opening Pandora's box" (Raby, Aubrey Beardsley and the Nineties, 1998, p 44. Mason 350. WITH: KEEN, HENRY, illustrator. The Picture of Dorian Gray. London: John Lane, The Bodley Head Ltd, 1925. 8vo (235 x 150 mm). Illustrated title page, 12 engraved plates after Keen. Publisher's decorated cloth, original pictorial dust jacket, and slipcase. AN EXCEEDINGLY FINE COPY OF KEEN'S EDITION OF DORIAN GRAY.