BEARDSLEY, Aubrey (illus.); MALORY, Sir Thomas.

£1,750 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

Le Morte Darthur. First Beardsley edition, one of 1,500 copies on ordinary paper. This was the artist's first major commission and the book that launched the "Beardsley look" (Gillon, p. iv).In 1892, seeking to emulate the books of the Kelmscott Press, John M. Dent commissioned the 20-year-old Beardsley to produce this edition, a project that took the artist 18 months to complete. "In Le Morte d'Arthur Beardsley learnt his job, but the result is no bungling student's work... If he had never illustrated another book, this edition of Morte d'Arthur could stand as a monument of decorative book illustration" (Lewis, pp. 148-9). The work was first published, to some controversy, in 12 monthly magazine instalments between June 1893 and mid-1894. "Often shockingly overt in their sexuality and eroticism, the illustrations rejected the aesthetic of the Pre-Raphaelites who were Beardsley's original mentors and offered a revisionist and parodic treatment of their medievalism. Ultimately, Beardsley went far beyond his original intention to 'flabbergast the bourgeois' of his day; he also challenged generations of readers and artists to view Arthurian society through his own modernist lens" (Lupack, pp. 75-91).The work was issued by subscription in 12 parts between June 1893 and November 1894 in an edition of 1,500 copies on standard paper, as here, and 300 copies on Van Gelder paper.

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