Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Price: US$1595.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: First edition, limited to 1,500 copies. Volume One only (Includes Books 1-9 as published), in extremely rare dust jacket. Published London: J. M. Dent, 1893. 4to., 8 1/2" x 10", lxiv + 455 pages, illustrated with full page plates, vignettes, borders, in-text decorations and cover design by Aubrey Beardsley. Beardsley's first major commission and a landmark of great illustrated books. Beardsley juxtaposed various traditional and contemporary styles with his own, and laid them down, side-by-side throughout the book. From elaborate and formal William Morris design elements to shocking eroticism and striking decadence - as in the case of the frontispiece plate of Arthur. Cream linen cloth with elaborate gilt design and fancy titles. Top edge gilting, 3-color ribbon marker bound in. Slight foxing to the cloth, endpapers toned along the perimeters, some wrinkling to the tissue guard at frontis, else very good, attractive; binding square and tight in a rare dust jacket. We have been unable to locate any other example in a dust jacket. Jacket has rebacking and loss at the spine and rear panel. A significant book. Size: 4to
Seller: The Wild Muse, Granville, NY, U.S.A.
Price: US$6250.00 + shipping
Description: First Edition Thus. Twelve original parts. In original printed pictorial green wrappers. Woodcut illustrations as plates, illustrations and decorations throughout by Aubrey Beardsley, one his most celebrated group of illustrations to appear in book form. 1500 copies were printed, seldom seen as a complete set of individual numbers in the original wrappers. Numbers 2 and 4 with spines darkened and chipped including some loss, overall age toning and edge wear to wrappers; contents generally quite clean; housed in three separate quarter calf folders within matching slipcases. Malory's reworking of existing tales about King Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, Merlin and the Knights of the Round Table. A truly remarkable set, Beardsley's output amounted to 360 full and double-page drawings, borders, chapter headings, and ornaments of detailed illustration, and a net total of over 1,000 decorations.
Seller: Nudelman Rare Books, Seattle, WA, U.S.A.
Price: US$7696.04 + shipping
Description: First Beardsley edition, an out of series unnumbered copy of one of 300 deluxe copies on Dutch handmade paper, from a total edition of 1,800. The book was issued in 12 parts in wrappers, with the purchaser given the choice of sending it back to the publisher, who bound them in vellum or cloth, or to a binder of their own. In 1892, seeking to emulate the books of the Kelmscott Press, John M. Dent commissioned the 20-year-old Beardsley to produce this edition, work that took the young 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 in 12 monthly magazine instalments between June 1893, and mid-1894. "Aubrey Beardsley's Morte Darthur was one of the most original and certainly one of the most controversial of the nineteenth-century artistic reinterpretations of Malory" which "established Beardsley as the voice of the 1890s" (Tepa Lupack, Chapter 4). "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" (ibid.). La Morte Darthur was an immediate sensation upon publication. Lasner 22. Lewis, John, The Twentieth Century Book, Herbert Press Ltd, 1984, pp. 148-9; Ray, The Illustrator and the Book in England from 1790 to 1914, Oxford University Press, 1976, p. 314; Tepa Lupack, Barbara Illustrating Camelot, D. S. Brewer, 2008. 3 volumes (243 x 188 mm). Contemporary half vellum, titles in gilt to red calf labels to spines, foliate gilt rulings to spine ends, brown morocco grain cloth sides, marbled edges and endpapers. With photogravure frontispieces on India paper to volumes I and III, 18 full-page wood engravings with tissue guards (5 double-page), numerous text illustrations and approximately 350 designs for chapter headings and borders (foliate and historiated) all by Aubrey Beardsley printed in red and black. Light soiling to vellum, slight bumps to tips, top edge of book block dust toned, sporadic faint foxing occasional and offsetting from full-page engravings and toning to their edges, a very good set.
Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom
Price: US$9200.00 + shipping
Condition: Near Fine
Description: Twelve original parts in green wrappers. Regular issue: one of 1500 copies. Full page and double page illustrations, rubricated initials, borders and in-text decorations by Aubrey Beardsley in his first major commission. The wrappers are generally lightly soiled and chipped at the edges. Spines are worn at tips, and the spine of Part One is split but firmly held by the sewing. A very good set of this masterpiece with the textblocks in near fine condition and free of the foxing that dogs the issue on handmade paper. Housed in two volumes of slipcases and cloth chemises, with the title on the slipcases on leather labels, gilt. Gaines, A14, a.1. .
Seller: Thorn Books, ABAA, Tucson, AZ, U.S.A.
Price: US$14375.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: Twelve original parts in green wrappers. Parts 1-8 and 10-12 are the "Superior Issue" of 300 copies on Dutch handmade paper (this set unnumbered). Part 9 is from the "regular issue" and is slightly smaller in size. Full page and double page illustrations, rubricated initials, borders and in-text decorations by Aubrey Beardsley in his first major commission. This set is uncut and largely unopened. There is some offsetting from the illustrations to the facing pages, as usual. Part 9 lacks a tiny piece form the spine and has had a nearly invisible repair to the upper wrapper; the wrappers show light soil, rubbing and aging else this is a very good set.
Seller: Thorn Books, ABAA, Tucson, AZ, U.S.A.
Price: US$15392.08 + shipping
Description: First Beardsley edition, one of 1,500 copies on ordinary paper; another 300 were printed on Dutch handmade paper. This copy in a bright and spectacular example of a "vellucent" binding, by Cedric Chivers of Bath, unsigned but a characteristic example of this style. Chivers invented a way to treat vellum so that it became translucent ("vellucent"): the cover design would be painted on a separate sheet and then a thin sheet of this translucent vellum would be laid over it; gilt tooling would then be applied over the top of this. In his catalogue of Books in Beautiful Bindings (c. 1905), Chivers describes the Beardsley Morte D'Arthur as "bound in whole vellucent from a design by the illustrator of the book. A figure panel enclosed in a floral border". The hand-painted cover illustrations for this set reproduce two of Beardsley's designs, volume one depicting "How Four Queens Found Launcelot Sleeping" (p. 184) and volume two "The Achieving of the Sangreal" (frontispiece). "Commissioned by British publisher J. M. Dent in 1892 and first published in twelve monthly magazine instalments between June 1893, and mid-1894, Aubrey Beardsley's Morte Darthur was one of the most original and certainly one of the most controversial of the nineteenth-century artistic reinterpretations of Malory. Although his illustrations for the Morte established Beardsley as the voice of the 1890s, he was until that time largely an unknown young artist. La Morte Darthur proved to be an immediate sensation upon publication and the impact of Beardsley's Arthurian illustrations was tremendous. Today, Beardsley's illustrations for the Morte, which constituted almost half his lifetime's artistic output, survive as the first example of modern Arthurian book illustration, and they remain arguably the best experimental visual reinterpretation of the Arthurian world. With their bold lines, strong visual themes, and numerous memorable but unconventional details, the Morte 'pictures' (which is how Beardsley himself referred to them) created an important - although admittedly idiosyncratic - symbology and iconography. 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, chapter 4). This is a masterpiece of book illustration in a striking binding. Ray, The Illustrator and the Book in England from 1790-1914, 314. Barbara Tepa Lupack, Illustrating Camelot, D. S. Brewer, 2008. 2 volumes, large square octavo (250 x 214 mm). Contemporary full vellum over bevelled boards by Cedric Chivers of Bath for Bumpus of London, gilt panelled spines with hand-painted art nouveau-style lettering and scrolling floriate motifs, below which, on a field of gilt dots, an overall pattern of stylised roses and rose leaves (volume I) and tulips and tulip leaves (volume II), sides with two-line gilt border enclosing a frame of hand-painted intertwining roses and rose leaves (volume I) and intertwining tulips and tulip leaves (volume II), both on a field of gilt dots, panel on each front cover with a hand-painted scene taken from Beardsley's designs, back covers with three-line gilt panels, top edges gilt, others untrimmed, partially uncut, gilt turn-ins, marbled endpapers. Gravure frontispieces, 18 full page wood engravings (including five double-page), numerous text illustrations, and approximately 350 repeated designs for chapter headings and borders, all by Aubrey Beardsley. Front joint of Vol. 2 superficially cracked but firm, short cracks to both spine heads, dampstains to joints and lower extremities, a touch of rubbing to the front of Vol. 1, vellum a little soiled but still bright and handsome, a touch of occasional foxing to contents and some light offsetting from frontispieces, else internally clean. A very good set, bright and fresh.
Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom