Oscar; [Lord Alfred DOUGLAS ( translator ); Aubrey BEARDSLEY ( illustrator )]. Salome. A tragedy in one act.

by WILDE

£4,000 · Offered by Henry Sotheran Ltd

WILDE, Oscar; [Lord Alfred DOUGLAS (translator); Aubrey BEARDSLEY (illustrator)]. Salome. A tragedy in one act. London: Elkin Mathews John Lane. 1894. Small 4to. Original blue-green woven cloth, gilt designs after Beardsley blocked to boards, , spine lettered in gilt, fore- and tail-edges uncut; pp. [x], 67, [1], 14 (advertisements), [2], 10 plates including frontispiece, illustrated title-page, contents page, and tailpiece by Aubrey Beardsley, printed on glazed paper from line blocks engraved by Carl Hentschel; a few chips to joints and corners, small loss to head of spine affecting 2 letters of gilt text, spine sunned;internally very clean; a very good copy; bookplate of William Forbes Morgan (1841–1916) to front pastedown. First English edition of Wilde’s one-act tragedy, the first with Beardsley's illustrations (four of which contain caricatures of Oscar Wilde), one of only 500 copies, translated by and dedicated to Wilde’s lover, Lord Alfred Douglas. Salomé was written in French in late 1891 while Wilde was staying in Paris, and accepted for production by Sarah Bernhardt at the London Opera House in 1892. However, the Lord Chamberlain prohibited performances because of a ban on Biblical figures being presented on stage, an outcome that understandably incensed Wilde. It was finally published in French in 1893, and then in this translation in 1894. Translating the nuances of Wilde's original text, written in an idiosyncratic French, has been acknowledged as a Herculean tas

• Binding: Hardcover

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