SYMONS, Arthur (editor). The Savoy. No. 1[–8 (all published)].

‘A Manifesto in Revolt Against Victorian Materialism’

SYMONS, Arthur (editor). The Savoy. No. 1[–8 (all published)]. London: Leonard Smithers. January[–December] 1896.

Eight issues bound in two volumes, 4to. Recent red quarter morocco with red buckram sides by Terry Buckley of Cambridge (binder’s ticket to front pastedowns), black gilt morocco lettering-pieces to spines; wanting the tipped-in or loosely inserted additional plate ‘A Christmas Card’ by Beardsley (as often); small chip to half-title of no. 1, some foxing to quires H and I of no. 2, sporadic light foxing to nos. 3 and 4 (heavier to no. 4, pp. 1–30) and to last few pp. of no. 8, the odd spot to no. 7; a very well-preserved set, with the additional covers for nos. 1 and 2 bound in (see below).

A full run of The Savoy, Arthur Symons’s rival to The Yellow Book, co-founded with Leonard Smithers as publisher and Aubrey Beardsley as art editor, with numerous illustrations by Beardsley.

Beardsley had been ‘recently fired from the Yellow Book at the time of the Oscar Wilde trials because of his daring illustrations for Salomé. Designed to surpass the Yellow Book as the principal avant-garde periodical of the 1890s, the first issue of The Savoy appeared in January 1896. With its eighth issue in December, the periodical – which had contained the work of such contributors as Yeats, Ellis, Conrad, Shaw, Verlaine, Dowson, Max Beerbohm, and Symons – ceased publishing. Despite its sudden demise, the periodical had propelled Symons to the centre of London literary circles’ (ODNB). Dubbed ‘a manifesto in revolt against Victorian materialism’, The Savoy was the first to publish extracts, albeit in expurgated form, of Beardsley’s unfinished erotic work Under the Hill.

Beardsley’s declining health was noted in The Savoy as early as April 1896: the publisher’s note to the second issue expresses regret that ‘owing to Mr. Beardsley’s illness he has been unable to finish one of his full-page drawings to Chapter IV. of Under the Hill’, postponed to the third issue (July 1896), which in turn notes that ‘in consequence of Mr. Beardsley’s severe and continued illness, we have been compelled to discontinue the publication of “Under the Hill”, which will be issued by the publisher in book form, with numerous illustrations by the author, as soon as Mr. Beardsley is well enough to carry the work to its conclusion’. Beardsley would never finish the work, however, and it would not appear in book form until 1907, published by Leonard Smithers.

Nos. 1 and 2 were bound in pink printed boards; ‘for the convenience of such subscribers as desire to bind up “The Savoy” into volumes, is appended a print of the covers of Nos. 1 and 2, pulled on white paper, which may be bound in, in substitution’ (no. 2, p. 197). Both have been retained in this set.

Gertner Zatlin 991–1030; Samuels Lasner 103.

SKU: 2124798