Staff Pick of the Week, Part Two!
Here we continue our look at the 1938 two-volume edition of Oscar Wilde’s one-act play, Salome, published by the Limited Editions Club in an edition of 1,500. Catch up on Part One here.
The English-language volume was printed at The Fanfare Press in London under the direction of Ernest Ingram. Illustrations for the English volume are by Aubrey Beardsley, reproduced from the First English Edition (London: Elkin Mathews and John Lane, 1894). Aubrey had produced sixteen drawings to accompany Wilde’s play, but John Lane had omitted four of them from the original publication and had expurgated two more. It was learning about these additional Beardsley illustrations, as well as Wilde’s lukewarm feelings for the English translation, that sparked the idea to produce two volumes for the work. The Limited Editions Club was able to obtain clear reproductions of Beardsley’s original drawings and included all sixteen (unedited!) in their edition.