The Savoy An Illustrated Monthly, No. 1 - No. 8; January 1896 - December 1896 (All published)
London: Leonard Smithers, 1896. Beardsley, Aubry. First edition. Orig. Illustrated wrappers. 25 1/2 x 19 cm. Complete as originally issued with the rare, Beardsley Christmas card laid-in Vol.I; a Beardsleyesque haloed Madonna dressed in black against a black background holding a boy in a white dressing gown on her lap. The first two issues are titled "An Illustrated Quarterly," with all subsequent issues, the next being July as a monthly. "Beardsley was closely associated with two periodicals, `The Yellow Book' and `The Savoy.' Though the former is better known, the latter yielded a far richer harvest of drawings. Indeed, in the last of its eight numbers, the fourteen designs that make up the `Art Contents' are all from his hand." [see: GORDON RAY 317: The Illustrator and the Book in England from 1790 to 1914]. With contributions by Max Beerbohm, Joseph Conrad, Austin Dobson, George Moore, G.B. Shaw and W.B. Yeats et al. Unfortunately, like many artistic endeavors its remarkable aesthetic value did not distill to the bottom line: the publication discontinued after No.8 with this final issue written by Symons and illustrated entirely by Beardsley. Modest edge wear: spine of Vol. 1 with loss of paper, Vol. 4 with small spine paper loss. Chips to spine bottoms. Foxing to margins mostly at first few and last pages of issues. Orig. pictorial mauve boards (Nos. 1-2) and pictorial green wrappers (Nos. 3-8). Good. Item #24706
Price: $2,500.00