BEARDSLEY (Aubrey). MALORY (Sir Thomas).

The Birth, Life, and Acts of King Arthur, of His Noble Knights of the Round Table, Their Marvellous Enquests and Adventures, The Achieving of the San Greal, and in the End, Le Morte Darthur with the Dolorous Death and Departing out of this World of Them All. The Text was Written by Sir Thomas Malory and Imprinted by William Caxton at Westminster...

London, J.M. Dent. 1893-4. First edition, one of 1500 copies. Two volumes. Original vellum, top edges gilt, others uncut. 4to. Lasner 22. Beardsley contributed the front cover design, 16 full-page and four double-page illustrations, 43 borders (some repeated), 288 chapter headings, initial letters, and ornaments (many repeated). It was the young artist's first major commission, the genesis of which began with a meeting between Beardsley and the publisher J. M. Dent who was looking for someone to illustrate an edition of Malory's Morte Darthur. On seeing Beardsley's trial drawing 'The Achieving of the Sangreal', described by Weintraub as "his first masterpiece", the publisher was reputedly rendered speechless by its quality. Duly commissioned, Beardsley set to work on a very tight schedule given the monthly publication of each part (though this was to lag considerably towards the end). The drawings, which took the medievalism of the Pre-Raphaelites and married it to the artists's own bizarre imagination and Japanese influenced style, made Beardsley's reputation. They are among the most stunning illustrations he ever produced. This copy contains the original parts bound up in publisher's vellum designed by Aubrey Beardsley. Copies of the ordinary issue were usually bound by the publishers in a cloth binding, vellum being reserved for the special issue on superior paper. Lasner notes a similar instance of the use of a vellum binding for the ordinary issue in the corrections to his check-list ('The Death of Pierrot: a Beardsley Miscellany', page 38. The Eighteen Nineties Society, 1998). Contemporary book-plate of H. Isabel Adams. A particularly nice copy with the vellum in bright, clean condition.

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