Eight volumes, being the complete run. The first two volumes bound in the original pink paper-covered boards, the remaining six in the blue paper wrappers. Beardsley's illustrated Christmas card laid into the first volume, and Smithers's notice of The Savoy's discontinuation laid into volume six. Advertisements to the rear of each volume. Housed in three custom red slipcases and chemises. Cover illustrations to each volume by Aubrey Beardsley, with further illustrations by some of the great artists of the 1890s including James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Walter Sickert. An exceptional set, in fine, bright condition. There are minor traces of wear to the margins of the wrappers and very occasional slight browning, but overall far better than usually encountered. The brightness and crispness of the blue wrappers is particularly noteworthy. There is a little tenderness to the second volume's hinges, and some repair to the top edge of the Christmas card.

Leonard Smithers, together with Arthur Symons and Aubrey Beardsley, conceived The Savoy as a successor to The Yellow Book which, having spurned Beardsley after its fourth issue due to his connections with Oscar Wilde, had become rather vanilla.
The periodical ran for eight issues between January and December 1896, Beardsley's "Annus Mirabilis" (R. A. Walker), during which short time Beardsley produced some of his finest illustrations, his style having reached maturity. Fulfilling Symons's hope that "good writers and artists will care to see their work in company with the work of good writers and artists", it featured work by Max Beerbohm, Joseph Conrad, Ford Maddox Hueffer, Ernest Dowson, George Bernard Shaw, W. B. Yeats, William Blake, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, W. Rothenstein, Walter Sickert, and James McNeill Whistler.
The periodical - true to its age - had its own tragic fall and was discontinued after the December issue. The content of the final issue is contributed entirely by Beardsley and Symons, with the latter writing: "Our first mistake was in giving so much for so little money; our second, in abandoning a quarterly for a monthly issue. The action of Messrs. Smith and Son in refusing to place 'The Savoy' on their bookstalls, on account of the reproduction of a drawing by Blake, was another misfortune. And then, worst of all, we assumed that there were very many people in the world who really cared for art, and really for art's sake."
Rarely found complete and as issued, and in such nice condition.

Lasner 103A

Stock ID: 39154