BEARDSLEY, Aubrey (1872-98, illustrator) - Thomas MALORY (1415-71). Le Morte Darthur, London, 1927, 4to, 22 plates by Aubrey Beardsley, illustrations, original dark blue pictorial cloth gilt (spine detached). ONE OF 1,600 COPIES. Third Beardsley edition.

BEARDSLEY, Aubrey (1872-98, illustrator) - Thomas MALORY (c.1415-71).  The Birth Life and Acts of King Arthur of His Noble Knights of the Round Table ... and in the end Le Morte Darthur. London: J. M. Dent and Sons Ltd., 1927, 4to (292 x 225mm). Half title, engraved frontispiece and one engraved plate, 20 woodblock plates, 5 of which double-page [i.e. on 2 sheets], by Aubrey Beardsley, illustrations, chapter-headings, initials and borders (some mainly marginal staining to first few leaves including frontispiece, some other staining at edges, small stain to one text leaf). Original dark blue pictorial cloth gilt after a design by Beardsley, top edges gilt, others uncut (spine detached, extremities rubbed). Provenance: William Gibbs, Xmas 1927 (signature on front pastedown). ONE OF 1,600 COPIES. First published in 1893, this is the third, and most complete, of the Beardsley editions. It includes an introduction by John Rhys ("this incomparable book"), notes on Aubrey Beardsley by Aymer Vallance, on the designs omitted from the first edition by R. A. Walker, and on the text by F. J. Simmons, and the original preface to the edition of 1485 by its printer William Caxton. "[Le Morte Darthur] was a tremendous task of illustration, for there were over three hundred and fifty separate drawings, one on almost every spread. Critics have usually dismissed Beardsley's Le Morte Darthur as immature, or even as hack work; yet if he had never illustrated another book, this edition ... could stand as a monument of decorative book illustration. Heavily influenced by the Kelmscott books of William Morris and to a lesser extent by Burne-Jones's illustrations, Beardsley already stands as a decorative master in his own right. The borders to his full page illustrations are as virile as Morris's, yet with a strong feeling of art nouveau ... In Le Morte Darthur Beardsley learnt his job, but the result is no bungling student's work. Some of these designs (he never called his drawings illustrations) stand as models of economy, none is impoverished. A work that started almost in homage to Morris ended, as Sir Kenneth Clark has said, as a macabre parody of the Kelmscott style" (John Lewis The 20th Century Book (1984, second edition), p.148); Garvey and Hofer The Artist and the Book (1961) 16: "The Malory drawings are his strongest illustrations"; Lasner 22C; Alan G Thomas Great Books and Book Collectors (1975), pp.227-228.