BEARDSLEY, Aubrey Nineteen Early Drawings by Aubrey Beardsley. From the Collection of Mr. Harold Hartley. With an Introduction by Georges Derry. Privately Printed, 1919.
4to. Original cloth-backed boards portfolio, printed label to upper board; 19 loose collotype plates, together with a smaller eight-paged pamphlet; boards a little toned to extremities and rubbed to corners, original ties fraying but intact; previous ownership sticker to inside front board; plate 1 toned along outside edges; else very good.
Limited to 150 numbered copies, signed by Harold Hartley. This No. 11. 19 previously unpublished comic illustrations.
These drawings were made by Beardsley in 1886, in his thirteenth to fourteenth year. They are intended in a comic fashion to illustrate Book II. of Virgil's Aeneid, which he was translating at the time with his Form-master, H.A. Payne, of the Brighton Grammar School. "It must be conceded that their artistic value is slight when compared with the astounding technique exhibited by Beardsley a comparatively few years after. They are not, however, entirely lacking in good draughtsmanship ... What distinguishes these drawings from nearly all his early work is their delightful humour - their genuine, though crude, comicality ..." (from the Introduction by "Georges Derry" [pseud. of R.A. Walker]).
Lasner 166.
#2108759