BURNEY, Frances. Evelina or The History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World.

Covert Decadent Elements

BURNEY, Frances. Evelina or The History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World. London: J.M. Dent and Company. 1893.

Two volumes, 8vo. Original brown cloth, spines lettered in gilt within architectural borders; vol. I: pp. xxxii, 237, [1]; vol. II: pp. [ii], 276; title-pages to each vol. by Beardsley (printed in red and brown), 7 plates after William Cubitt Cooke, including frontispieces to both vols; spines darkened, slight discolouration to boards, a few marks; browning to endpapers and light offsetting to title; nonetheless a very good set.

First edition thus, no. 60 of the limited large-paper issue of 200 copies. This is the first book to use Beardsley’s title-page design which was reproduced in the same publisher’s editions of Frances Burney’s Cecilia (1893) and Madame de Stael’s Corinne (1894).

Beardsley was likely also responsible for the spine design, but his artistic input into this attractive edition of Burney’s 1778 novel went no further. The illustrator chosen by Dent, William Cubitt Cooke (1866–1951), was not a natural bedfellow of the subversive Beardsley, being best known for his well-mannered illustrations of the complete works of Jane Austen and Charles Lever.

Although Beardsley’s architectural title-page design seems to conform to eighteenth century proportions and conventions at first glance, he was unable to resist adding two bare-breasted figures and a sinister animal skull. ‘Sex and death were never far from his thoughts or from the work of his pen’ (Grolier Club, Aubrey Beardsley – 150 Years Young, online).

Reade 35; Samuels Lasner 24; Vallance 62.i.

SKU: 2125438