Beardsley, Aubrey and Alexander Pope

Estimate

4,000 - 6,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

Beardsley, Aubrey and Alexander Pope
The Rape of the Lock... embroidered with nine drawings by Aubrey Beardsley. Leonard Smithers, 1896
PAPER

4to, number 4 of 25 copies on Japanese vellum, title-page printed in red and black, 7 full-page illustrations and two illustrations within the text by Beardsley, original pictorial vellum gilt, top edge gilt, collector's morocco-backed folding box, slightly bowed, minor soiling to upper cover, spine of collector's box chipped

Literature

Lasner 105

Catalogue Note

One of the rarest editions of Beardsley's illustrated books. Lasner notes that records at the Chiswick Press reveal that 37 copies were printed on Japanese vellum of which 25 were for sale.

"The Rape of the Lock was praised universally by critics at the turn of the century... ...a new technical device occurred to the illustrator: he began to use dotted lines in quantity to give stippled effects... In most of them the scenes are treated as pictorial dramas with great restraint: space is understood and implied by the artist's completely personal craft..." (Brian Reade, Beardsley, London, 1967, p. 18).