[BODLEY HOUSE.] [Front wrapper:] Catalogue No. 64. Books at Bodley House … Aubrey Beardsley. An exceptionally extensive collection.

Saving Beardsley Books from Bombs

[BODLEY HOUSE.] [Front wrapper:] Catalogue No. 64. Books at Bodley House … Aubrey Beardsley. An exceptionally extensive collection. Bertram Rota: Bodley House. 1940.

8vo. Publisher’s blue printed self-wrappers; pp. [2], 56; spine slightly sunned, a few ink marks to rear wrapper; uniform light browning, minor creasing to inner margin of 6 ff.; else very well preserved.

A rare wartime catalogue issued by Bertram Rota from John Lane’s former premises, featuring some one hundred and forty works of Beardsleyana ‘patiently gathered over many years’ (p. 44).

In 1937, antiquarian bookseller Bertram Rota (1903–1966) moved to the old Bodley Head premises at 9 Vigo Street, previously the offices of John Lane.

It was at this address that The Yellow Book and numerous other works illustrated by Beardsley had been published. The catalogue includes an original drawing of Egham Church by the fourteen-year-old Beardsley, proof copies of wrappers and a suppressed prospectus for The Savoy, Wilde’s Salome with an autograph letter by Lord Alfred Douglas, and much else.

There is a poignant preface from Rota on the act of bookselling in the midst of the Second World War: ‘As there are still books at Bodley House after half a year of war here is another list of them […] He who buys may be plucking a brand from the burning, a book from the bombs […] The permanence of the world of books is a rock to cling to in these times. Fortunate is he who can surround himself with silent friends, ever ready to fall in with his mood, to entertain, instruct and console him by turns, and always by their mere presence to give him the assurance of happiness’ (p. [1]); although Rota’s bookshop on Vigo Street would sustain a direct hit during the Blitz, he would continue to operate there until the 1960s.

OCLC finds copies at Delaware, the Grolier Club, and NYPL only; no copies traced on Library Hub.

SKU: 2125293