WALKER, R. A. Some Unknown Drawings of Aubrey Beardsley

‘Bibliography is like a Toy Balloon’

WALKER, R. A. Some Unknown Drawings of Aubrey Beardsley London: [Spottiswoode, Ballantyne & Co.] for the author. 1923.

4to. Publisher’s cream cloth, spine and upper board lettered in gilt; ff. [12 (introduction)], [74]; numbered illustrations to rectos and text to opposite versos, tipped-in colour plate for Caprice mounted on dark grey card and with tissue guard and black-and-white plates facing text of nos. 7 and 22; lacking the rare dust-jacket, some soiling to boards and spine, spine ends and corners bumped; mild spotting to endpapers; unopened, fore- and tail-edges uncut; internally clean and bright; numbered and signed by the author in light brown ink with presentation inscription below in his hand (somewhat shaky) ‘To my good friend ?R.P. […]’, signed R.A. Walker.

First edition, no. 170 of 500 copies (of which 450 for sale) of this catalogue of Beardsley’s drawings by R.A. Walker, an early champion of Beardsley’s work, this copy presented by the author to his ‘good friend’.

Some Unknown Drawings contains thirteen drawings by Beardsley, nine hitherto unpublished, as well as A Caprice (1894), one of two known oil paintings by Beardsley, and facsimiles of three of his letters. In his preface, Walker explains that publication had been intended for 1920, but was delayed by production costs and the fact that ‘Bibliography is like a toy balloon – the more one blows and the more one works the larger it becomes’.

He also comments on undercurrents of hostility amongst his fellow bibliophiles, complaining that his ‘information of joyous “finds” imparted with a bibliophile’s garrulity’ had been abused, having discovered that A Caprice, discovered by Walker and purchased from his collection by the Tate, had been published elsewhere, along with illustrations by Beardsley he had ‘collected at considerable trouble’.

Samuels Lasner 170.

SKU: 2124729