‘ARROW, Simon’ (pseud., i.e. George Granville HOPE-JOHNSTONE?). Count Fanny's Nuptials

£200 · Offered by Henry Sotheran Ltd

Death, Decay Desire ‘ARROW, Simon’ (pseud., i.e. George Granville HOPE-JOHNSTONE?). Count Fanny's Nuptials [ London :] Printed for private circulation, and published by G.G. Hope Johnstone. [1907.] 4to. Original navy blue bevelled cloth, spine lettered in gilt; pp. 68, [1], [3 (blank)]; 7 plates attributed to ‘Alastair’ (see below); extremities lightly rubbed; the odd spot; a very good copy. First edition of this anonymous erotic story, likely authored by the publisher, with illustrations thought to be by ‘Alastair’ (i.e. Hans Henning von Voight) frequently misattributed to Beardsley. Count Fanny’s Nuptials describes the eponymous nobleman’s wooing of the young Lucy Birchman, set against a backdrop of decadent sensuality: he woos Lucy with gifts of ‘a cage of strange silk-worms that wove strange tapestries in two colours’, French erotic drawings, a copy of Les Fleurs du mal , ‘a rare pamphlet attributed to the Marquis de Sade upon the cover of which dwarfs engaged in unthinkable pleasantries’, a ‘pair of frail drawers [...] broidered in pink thread with a design of horned satyrs’, and much else. There are scenes at the Grand Ballet and discussions of Turner, Manet, and the shops of Burlington Arcade; all the while, Lucy’s mother flirts ‘in the most outrageous manner with Erotion (Fanny’s manservant?), allowing ‘her bodice to slip aside with studied carelessness and display the ample zones of her bosom’. In 1913 Hope-Johnstone appeared before the King’s Bench Division, having

• Binding: Hardcover

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