Aubrey Beardsley

Robert Ross was one of the first people that Aubrey Beardsley met when he arrived in London to make his name in 1892. Within six years the young artist was dead; but the work he produced in that short time revolutionised British art, and he was fixed forever in the public imagination as one of the leading spirits of the decadent era. Like many others, Ross was taken not only by the evident originality and genius of Beardsleys work, but also by his character, remembering the delightful and engaging smile both for friends and strangers, his modesty, wit, erudition, and contrary to popular opinion his briskness and virility, or, as Beerbohm put it, his stony common sense. Beardsleys reputation, both artistic and personal, was caught up in the hurricane that overtook avant garde art after the trial of Oscar Wilde. Ross set out in his pioneering biography to redress the balance. He memorialised the worth of the man he knew, and established the seriousness of his art, its roots in the work of the Old Masters (of whom Beardsley had considerable knowledge). This combination of personal memoir and informed analysis by someone at the heart of the artistic world of the 1890s makes this biography one of the most fascinating and evocative documents of the period. This republication is a close copy of the first stand-alone edition of 1909. It comes complete with all its original illustrations (and the advertisements for Beardsleys publications) and the catalogue of Beardsleys works by Aymer Vallance, which is still the cornerstone of Beardsley studies. It is introduced by Matthew Sturgis, Beardsleys most distinguished recent biographer.