There was such a lot to offend Victorian sensibilities in Beardsley’s work at this time, whether overt or surreptitious, that it’s remarkable the book was printed at all. That picture did contain a masturbating page boy so it’s perhaps not so surprising. The original title page shown here had the semi-erect penis of the winged boy and the pendulous genitals of the herma removed while one drawing, The Toilette of Salomé, was deemed too much and had to be redrawn entirely. The book also includes the complete text of Wilde’s play and Robert Ross’s Note on Salomé from 1930 which I don’t have elsewhere.īeardsley’s work was subject to many censorship actions during his career but the Salomé book caused the most trouble (his later erotic works were private editions so don’t really count). Not that I’m in desperate need of these drawings, having most of them several times already in different Beardsley books, but this volume is worth having since the reproductions are large size, very sharp and they took enough care to ensure that the uncensored versions of the drawings were used. This appeared in 1967, a year after the major V&A exhibition which introduced Beardsley’s work to a new generation and commenced the Beardsley craze that lasted into the Seventies. The first edition publishing the full suite of sixteen Beardsley illustrations & to featuring the cover design by Rickett’s, was issued in 1907.So the first book purchase of the year turns out to be the original Dover edition of Beardsley and Wilde’s Salomé. However several of the illustrations were censored. The first edition to feature Beardsley’s drawings was published in 1895. Ross, who says of Beardsley’s illustrations: ‘It is interesting that he should have found inspiration for his finest work in a play he never admired and by a writer he cordially disliked.’ With 16 uncensored plates by Beardsley and a twenty-two page ‘Note on Salome’ by Wilde’s friend & literary executor, Robert Ross. Light creasing to upper board, contents in very good condition. Publisher’s green cloth boards with design ‘The Seven Trees,’ by Charles Ricketts stamped in gilt to upper cover, title lettered in gilt to spine. Translated From the French of Oscar Wilde With Sixteen Drawings by Aubrey Beardsley.
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