1894-97 · London
by BEARDSLEY, AUBREY, Illustrator
London: Elkin Mathews and John Lane, Boston: Copeland and Day, 1894-97. FIRST PRINTINGS of all volumes except I, II, and XIII. 208 x 165 mm. (8 1/4 x 6 1/2"). 14 volumes. Selection edited by Cedric Ellsworth Smith.
Original yellow cloth with black illustrations on the covers, a quarter of the leaves UNOPENED. "Selection" with matching dust jacket. With title page vignettes and 220 plates, as called for, by such artists as Beardsley, John Singer Sargent, Max Beerbohm, and Pattan Wilson; "Selection" reproducing 28 of these plates. Spines a bit darkened, mild smudging to boards, one page with minor tea stains, but an excellent set, the bindings solid, the clean, fresh (partly unopened) contents remarkably free of the foxing that usually plagues this publication.
This is an unusually well-preserved set of the pioneering literary and art journal founded by novelist Henry Harland (1861-1905) and illustrator Aubrey Beardsley (1872-98), who met in the office of a doctor treating them both for tuberculosis. According to DNB, "The Yellow Book" was established to display what its founders "saw as the quintessence of contemporary art and literature, with the gifted Beardsley creating as well as acquiring the art, and Harland procuring and editing the letterpress portion. John Lane of the Bodley Head became the publisher, and the first number appeared to great acclaim in April of 1894. From the beginning, Harland demonstrated his shrewdness . . . in the writers he solicited as contributors; they ranged from the eminent and safe to the upcoming and experimental. Although the quarterly opened with a novella by Henry James and art by J. S. Sargent, critics sniffed scandal in the yellow covers, used in France for racy novels, and in the artifice of Max Beerbohm and Beardsley himself. Other writers who appeared during its life were such representatives of respectability as Edmund Gosse, William Watson, Richard Garnett, and George Saintsbury, and, as their modish antithesis, George Moore, Frederick Rolfe (Baron Corvo), John Davidson, and Arthur Symons. 'The Yellow Book' might have lived down abuse as precious and depraved, had Oscar Wilde not been described on his arrest a year later as carrying 'a yellow book.' The Bodley Head offices were stoned, and Beardsley—who had [actually] refused Wilde a place in the publication—was sacked by Lane to save the journal." Because of the paper stock used for this publication, copies are usually plagued by foxing, but our set has escaped this fate. While the brightness of the yellow covers has been dimmed by dust and exposure to light, the interiors seem little changed from the day of publication--because some leaves were never opened and the set generally was little used.. (Inventory #: ST17640-553)
Original yellow cloth with black illustrations on the covers, a quarter of the leaves UNOPENED. "Selection" with matching dust jacket. With title page vignettes and 220 plates, as called for, by such artists as Beardsley, John Singer Sargent, Max Beerbohm, and Pattan Wilson; "Selection" reproducing 28 of these plates. Spines a bit darkened, mild smudging to boards, one page with minor tea stains, but an excellent set, the bindings solid, the clean, fresh (partly unopened) contents remarkably free of the foxing that usually plagues this publication.
This is an unusually well-preserved set of the pioneering literary and art journal founded by novelist Henry Harland (1861-1905) and illustrator Aubrey Beardsley (1872-98), who met in the office of a doctor treating them both for tuberculosis. According to DNB, "The Yellow Book" was established to display what its founders "saw as the quintessence of contemporary art and literature, with the gifted Beardsley creating as well as acquiring the art, and Harland procuring and editing the letterpress portion. John Lane of the Bodley Head became the publisher, and the first number appeared to great acclaim in April of 1894. From the beginning, Harland demonstrated his shrewdness . . . in the writers he solicited as contributors; they ranged from the eminent and safe to the upcoming and experimental. Although the quarterly opened with a novella by Henry James and art by J. S. Sargent, critics sniffed scandal in the yellow covers, used in France for racy novels, and in the artifice of Max Beerbohm and Beardsley himself. Other writers who appeared during its life were such representatives of respectability as Edmund Gosse, William Watson, Richard Garnett, and George Saintsbury, and, as their modish antithesis, George Moore, Frederick Rolfe (Baron Corvo), John Davidson, and Arthur Symons. 'The Yellow Book' might have lived down abuse as precious and depraved, had Oscar Wilde not been described on his arrest a year later as carrying 'a yellow book.' The Bodley Head offices were stoned, and Beardsley—who had [actually] refused Wilde a place in the publication—was sacked by Lane to save the journal." Because of the paper stock used for this publication, copies are usually plagued by foxing, but our set has escaped this fate. While the brightness of the yellow covers has been dimmed by dust and exposure to light, the interiors seem little changed from the day of publication--because some leaves were never opened and the set generally was little used.. (Inventory #: ST17640-553)
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