BEARDSLEY, Aubrey (illus.); MALORY, Sir Thomas
The Birth, Life, and Acts of King Arthur, of his noble knights of the round table, their marvellous enquests and adventures, the achieving of the San Greal and in the end Le Morte Darthur, with the dolorous death and departing out of this world of them all. The text as written by Sir Thomas Malory and imprinted by William Caxton… now spelled in modern style. With an introduction by Professor Rhys and embellished with many original designs by Aubrey Beardsley.
2 volumes, large square octavo (240 × 192 mm)
First Beardsley edition of Malory’s Arthurian epic in a stunning example of Cedric Chivers’s “vellucent” bindings, hand-painted after Beardsley’s own artwork within. This copy presents Beardsley’s decadent version of Malory’s Chivalric romance, noted for illustrations “shockingly overt in their sexuality and eroticism”, as a thoroughly luxurious whole. Only a handful of sets were bound in this manner. This is one of the 1,500 copies of Beardsley’s edition printed on ordinary paper, aside from 300 produced on handmade paper.
Chivers’s binding style is produced by hand-painting the backing sheet of the binding, which is subsequently covered in vellum that has been shaved to transparency, and then tooled in gilt. Chivers patented his vellucent method in 1898 and used it to create some of the most beautiful books of the turn of the century. This style influenced, and became closely associated with, the arts and crafts movement.
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