BEARDSLEY, Aubrey (illus.); JONSON, Ben.

£2,000 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

Volpone: or the Fox. First Beardsley edition, deluxe issue, number 79 of 100 copies printed on japon paper, specially bound in full vellum, and featuring an extra suite of five plates with larger versions of Beardsley's vignettes.In November 1897, Beardsley was commissioned to produce 24 illustrations for this edition of Jonson's Volpone, including a frontispiece, decorative initials, and a front cover design. In the event, he could only complete the cover design, the frontispiece, and six vignettes before his death on 16 March 1898. This was, however, a project that Beardsley was passionate about, writing "I am making pictures of Ben Jonson's adorable and astonishing Volpone" and "I carry Volpone about with me from dawn to dawn and dream of nothing else". He considered his illustration for the frontispiece ("Volpone Adoring His Treasure") as "one of the strongest things I have ever done" (cited in Nelson, p. 163).

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