MALORY, Thomas, Sir; Aubrey BEARDSLEY (illustrator). [Le Morte Darthur.] The Birth Life and Acts of King Arthur of His Noble Knights of the Round Table …

Beardsley's First Big Commission

MALORY, Thomas, Sir; Aubrey BEARDSLEY (illustrator). [Le Morte Darthur.] The Birth Life and Acts of King Arthur of His Noble Knights of the Round Table … [Edinburgh: Turnbull & Spears for] London: J.M. Dent. June 1893–November 1894.

Twelve parts in two volumes, 4to. Publisher’s cream cloth (see below), gilt floral designs by Beardsley to spine and upper board, spine lettered in gilt, top-edges gilt, the others uncut, multicoloured cloth place-markers (that of vol. I detached); vol. I: pp. lxiv, 456; vol. II: pp. [8], lxv–xc, 457–990, [2 (colophon, blank)]; photogravure frontispieces to both vols and 18 wood-engraved plates by Beardsley (of which 5 double-page with tissue guards); numerous wood-engraved borders, initials, chapter headings, and ornaments by Beardsley, woodcut Dent device to title; light soiling and spotting to boards, vol. I with a few small chips to foot of spine and short splits to joints at head (very neatly repaired at an early date); vol. I lightly browned throughout, occasional light offsetting from plates, short closed marginal tear to pp. 391–92; a very good set; 1898 ownership inscription of M.L. Sumner to front pastedown of vol. II.

First edition to be illustrated by Beardsley, one of 1,500 ordinary-issue copies, of Malory’s Morte d’Arthur.

‘The Morte d’Arthur is the most famous version and the first in English prose of all the legends which have collected about King Arthur. It is the only true English epic […] The matchless style, the humour, the magnificence, the magic that takes away the breath, combine in a masterpiece of legendary narrative’ (PMM 29). This was twenty-year-old Beardsley’s first major commission; he was recommended to J.M. Dent by his friend (and later a major collector of Beardsley’s works), the photographer and bookseller Frederick H. Evans. Beardsley produced some three hundred and fifty designs, including chapter headings and ornaments, several of which are repeated.

The ordinary issue was produced in twelve parts in green wrappers, from June 1893 to mid-1894; the purchaser could then choose to have it bound in two volumes ‘by the publisher or another binder – in cream cloth cases … supplied by Dent’ (Samuels Lasner).

Gertner Zatlin 338–69, 371–675; Reade 56–152; Reade & Dickinson 212–13; Samuels Lasner 22; Vallance 59.

SKU: 2124714