And Other Essays In Prose And Verse
ROBBIE ROSS'S COPY
Under the Hill And Other Essays In Prose And Verse
John Lane, 1904.
First edition. 4to. Publisher's blue cloth, block in gilt after Beardsley's cover design for Salomé. Robbie Ross's copy, inscribed for him on the front endpaper by the publisher "Robert Ross from John Lane". Seventeen black and white plates, three of which had not before been published. A very good copy, toned to spine with a little wear to the lower joint.
An exceptional association copy linking two major figures of the Decadent movement.
Robbie Ross first met Beardsley on Valentine's Day, 1892, and records the meeting in his 1898 eulogy, published in Volpone:
"Though prepared for an extraordinary personality, I never expected the youthful apparition which glided into the room... He brought a portfolio of his marvellous drawings, in themselves an earnest of genius, but I hardly paid any attention to them at first, so overshadowed were they by the strange and fascinating originality of their author... He was an intellectual Marcellus suddenly matured."
The pair would remain friends for the rest of Beardsley's life. Later Ross urged John Lane to commission the artist to provide illustrations for the English edition of Oscar Wilde's Salomé (1894), on which Beardsley's reputation as a decadent artist without peer largely rests.
PROVENANCE: Robbie Ross (1869 - 1918), presentation inscription from the publisher.
Stock ID: 39602
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