Keynotes Series of Novels and Short Stories: Twenty-One Designs by Aubrey Beardsley, with Press Notices

Keynotes Series of Novels and Short Stories: Twenty-One Designs by Aubrey Beardsley, with Press Notices

London:

John Lane,

1896.

Oscar Wilde’s prosecution for “gross indecency” led to chaos at the Bodley Head, which had been publishing Wilde’s work in the 1890s. During the 1895 trials, Edward Shelley, a young employee, testified that he had been seduced by Wilde after meeting him at the Vigo Street offices. Now sole proprietor of the Bodley Head, John Lane yielded to pressure and made a show of clearing out decadent elements by firing Beardsley from his Yellow Book art editorship. Beardsley, who was no champion of Wilde, was baffled and distraught, having lost both financial security and a high-profile position. Lane, however, continued to send occasional commissions his way. Even in 1896, this advertising booklet still blazoned Beardsley’s connection with the “Keynotes Series” which, though aimed at sophisticated readers, was distributed widely, as the cover trumpeted, through “all Libraries”—i.e., circulating libraries with paid subscribers—along with “Booksellers” and “Railway Bookstalls.”

From the Mark Samuels Lasner Collection, University of Delaware Library, Museums and Press