Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Wilde, Oscar. Salome. Elkin Mathews & Copeland & Day, London & Boston, 1894.
Price: US$2750.00 + shipping
Description: 67 pages. 21.5 x 15.5 cm. Limited edition, one of 500 copies. 16 pages of adverts dated January 1984 published by Elkin Mathews and John Lane at rear. BeardsleymockedWildein his illustrations, depicting him as the 'Woman in the Moon' and as a jester in 'Enter Herodias'. First published in French the previous year withoutBeardsley's illustrations due to censorship problems: the production of the play had its license withheld by the Lord Chamberlain on the grounds of its having introduced biblical characters. LASNER 59. MASON 350. Ten full page black and white plates by Beardsley. Text clean, renewed endpapers, slight rubbing to covers. Rebacked in full dark green calf, front and back covers decorated in gilt. Very good
Seller: Royoung Bookseller, Inc. ABAA, Ardsley, NY, U.S.A.
Price: US$3208.16 + shipping
Description: First edition in English and with the Beardsley illustrations; 500 copies printed. Octavo. pp [xiv], 67. 16-page publishers' catalogue, dated January 1894, at rear. Frontispiece, pictorial title-page and list of illustrations, 9 illustrations, tailpiece and cover design by Aubrey Beardsley. The list of illustrations is a cancel as three of the plates were considered too risqué for publication, one them being replaced entirely and the two others receiving alterations. Loose-weave blue cloth with gilt devices on front and rear cover.Some damage to inner margin of cancelled list of illustrations page. Spine faded and rubbed so that the titles are illegible. Some rubbing to edges of covers. Good, internally near fine.
Seller: Peter Ellis, Bookseller, ABA, ILAB, London, United Kingdom
Price: US$3233.83 + shipping
Description: 220mm x 160mm (9" x 6"). 67pp, 15pp + plates. 10 plates by Aubrey Beardsley. G : in good condition. Rebacked. Cover rubbed. Page edges browning. Hinge at title cracked
Seller: Barter Books Ltd, Alnwick, NORTH, United Kingdom
Price: US$7378.78 + shipping
Description: First edition in English, one of 500 trade copies, here in unusually nice condition. This edition was the first to feature Beardsley's striking illustrations. "If Le Morte Darthur [1893] made Beardsley known, his designs for the first edition in English of Wilde's Salomé made him notorious, and it remains the book of which most people think when his name is mentioned" (Ray). Salomé was originally published in French in the preceding year and was translated into English by Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas. A further 100 large-paper copies of the present edition were also issued. Loosely inserted is a sheet from the Saturday Review issue of 24 March 1894, printing an article on the work which opens, "It would be a sad spirit that could find no cheer in this little blue quarto". This copy is from the significant theatre collection of Clive Hirschhorn (b. 1940), who spent decades as the Sunday Express's film and theatre critic and whose various histories of Hollywood include The Warner Bros. Story (1978) and The Hollywood Musical (1981). Hirschhorn's ownership inscription is pencilled on the front pastedown. Mason 350; Ray 315A. Small quarto. Original blue canvas boards designed by Beardsley, spine lettered in gilt, decorations to covers in gilt, top edge trimmed, other edges uncut. Housed in custom blue cloth folding box. Frontispiece, illustrated title and list of illustrations pages, 9 plates, terminating pictorial endpiece. Publisher's 16-page ads at end. Engraved bookplate of the writer and headmistress Mary Ruth Mayhew, Lady Head (1866-1939). Spine lightly toned, else bright, wear to upper corner, occasional internal spots, generally clean. A near-fine copy.
Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom
Price: US$9000.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: FIRST EDITION. 1 vol., 8-1/2" x 7", illustrated by Charles Rickets, limited to 200 copies, printed in 3 colors, bound in original art nouveau gilt decorated vellum, covers straight (often found quite bowed), inner and outer hinges fine, head and foot of spine fine, foxing to one side of the first 8 leaves (typical), previous owners bookplate to front pastedown, housed in a 1/2 red morocco clamshell slipcase, raised bands gilt decorated spine, overall still a VERY GOOD copy. Charles Ricketts's art nouveau illustrations, were described by W. E. Henley, Wilde's harshest critic, as "about as fin-de-Siecle a business as you ever saw" (Frankel, p. 155). Ricketts considered the designs for the illustrations and for the original vellum binding amongst his best work. While predominantly working with book illustration and design, Ricketts was also famed for his theater designs and costumes, and he contributed to the first English production of Wilde's Salome in 1906.
Seller: D&D Galleries - ABAA, Somerville, NJ, U.S.A.
WILDE, OSCAR. Salome. A Tragedy In One Act. London Elkin Mathews & John Lane 1894, 1894.
Price: US$10000.00 + shipping
Description: First English Edition. Limited to 500 copies. Illustrated by Aubrey Beardsley. Original gilt-stamped blue cloth. Near fine only slightly handled copy with the gilt-stamping to the boards bright. From the library of Harpo Marx, the great clown of the Marx Brothers comedy team, and his wife actress Susan Fleming Marx, former member of the Ziegfeld Follies and star of early talking films like Million Dollar Legs with W.C. Fields. With a charming bookplate illustrated by Susan Marx with a drawing of Harpo in his comic character which reads: ÒFROM THE LIBRARY OF HARPO & SUSAN MARXÓ.
Seller: James Pepper Rare Books, Inc., ABAA, Santa Barbara, CA, U.S.A.
WILDE, Oscar.. The Sphinx.. London: Elkin Mathews and John Lane, 1894, 1894.
Price: US$12832.65 + shipping
Description: First edition, one of 200 unnumbered copies. Wilde's poem, together with Charles Ricketts's art nouveau illustrations, was described by W. E. Henley, Wilde's harshest critic, as "about as fin-de-Siecle a business as you ever saw" (Frankel, p. 155). Wilde first met Ricketts in 1889, and in the two years that followed the artist designed either parts or the entirety of several of Wilde's works, including The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), Poems (1892), Intentions (1891), and Lord Arthur Savile's Crime (1891). While predominantly working with book illustration and design, Ricketts was also famed for his theatre designs and costumes, and he contributed to the first English production of Wilde's Salomé in 1906. As recorded by James G. Nelson, alongside the 200 copies published in the limited edition, a further 103 copies were printed, though most of these were left unbound. Mason 361; Nicholas Frankel, Oscar Wilde's Decorated Books, 2003; James G. Nelson, A Checklist of Early Bodley Head Books: 1889-1894, 1999. Small quarto. Original full vellum, pictorial decorations by Ricketts to spine and covers in gilt, all edges untrimmed, printed throughout in black, green, and red. Housed in a dark green quarter morocco solander box by the Chelsea Bindery. Title page design, one half-page illustration and eight full-page illustrations by Charles Ricketts. Boards very slightly bowed, as often, some natural variation to vellum on rear cover. A fine copy.
Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom