Product Description
This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process.We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process.We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
1927. A romantic novel in which is set forth an exact account of the manner of State held by Madam Venus, Goddess and Meretrix, under the famous Horselberg, and containing the Adventures of Tannhauser in that Palace, his repentance, his journeying to Rome and return to the Loving Mountain. Aubrey Beardsley was one of the most controversial artists of the Art Nouveau era, renowned for his dark and perverse images and the grotesque erotic themes which he explored in his later work. His eroticism is manifest, and must be accepted as simply as the fact that he had auburn hair and long hands. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Silly, poorly written erotica by a very talented artist
I love Aubrey Beardsley's sly erotic illustrations.All his imagery seems charged with sexual overtones and I couldn't help but think that Venus and Tannhauser would be an elegant and twisted story.I was looking for a bit of old-fashioned erotica ala Anais Nin or Nabakov...something evocative.

Instead I got a 14 year old boy's version of an orgy with much farting, grasping of appendages (ridiculously shaped and sized), spankings, high-blown dialogue, and pinching.I repeat: much farting and pinching.Maybe if I were slightly impaired I'd find it entertaining or titillating, but even drunk weasels would think this twaddle (they might snicker a bit, high-pitched weasel snickers).Surprisingly, the artwork ain't all there either.There are some lovely bits and some funny comic erotic drawings, but overall the illustrations were sparse.Could it just be my copy??Part of my response might be just that I'm unfamiliar with the Venus and Tannhauser tale, but if I remember correctly, that tale was not so overblown.Beardsley's retelling reads like a very, very bad version of Alexander Pope's Rape of the Lock, but taken seriously in an odd juvenile manner.

I'd recommend this purchase for a die-hard Beardsley collector, but certainly not for someone who admires his work and is looking for an old-fashioned erotic read.Stick to his artwork and then read Anais Nin.Best of both worlds.

Hoping for more
I very much enjoyed Beardsley's bizarre, effete narration. His writing style is very different from the plain, clean lines of his drawing. The text nearly smothers the reader in adjectives and tangential detail - an affectation that reinforces the description of dissipated foppery.

Unfortunately, not all of the writing is Beardsley's. His early death left this work unfinished. A "posthumous collaborator" in the 1950s finished it, perhaps to his own satisfaction but not to mine. The break in style is quite abrupt where the modern writer took over, and I found his turn of plot inauthentic. [I think the first paragraph p.80 is where the impostor began writing. See ISBN 1871592127 for a comparison text.]

The book does reproduce a few of Beardsley's wonderful illustrations. There are only a few of them, though - this book is not primarily about Beardsley's drawing. If it were, I'm sure the printing and paper would have been upgraded to show more of the pictures' detail.

Any fan of Beardsley's art will gain insight from his writing. The reader should take care, however, in distinguishing Beardsley's writing from anyone else's.

(By the way, this is not for the squeamish. This is part of Beardsley's history, and some history is not very nice.)

a must buy
The story focuses on one Tannhauser's sexual frolics in the abode of the goddess Venus.The erotica is mostly implied or subtle which makes this book all the more fascinating,instead of repulsive as some works of erotica are.All in all,a must buy for collectors of erotica and a vintage literary gem.

best erotica available
This erotic fiction is a very fine piece of work.For the collector of erotica this book is a must buy.The story focuses on one Tannhauser's sexual frolics in the abode of the goddess Venus.The erotica is mostly implied or subtle, which makes the book all the more fascinating instead of disgusting as some works of erotica are.All in all,a vintage literary gem.

no heads or tails
this is a novel which is a good example of how not to write one. it is about a dandy tanhauser who visits the goddess venus and and his exploits in her realm. ... Read more

Product Description
This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process.We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (3)

The way literature should be done!
This review should be taken seriously considering I didn't really like "The Rape of the Lock" and still give this book 5 stars!

"History is not a vacuum," one of my university history professors always told us.Neither is literature for that matter!This book examines the mock-epic poem "Rape of the Lock" in its social, literary, and historical contexts.The poem takes up a small portion of the book, and the rest is made up of diary entries, letters, essays, newspapers, etc. that help to explain the culture surrounding Pope.The city of London, clothes, card games, coffee, makeup, social norms, and countless other things are discussed in very readable and enjoyable ways in order to make "The Rape of the Lock" truly come alive.

The ultimate "mock epic"
This poem serves two purposes.First, Pope wrote it in response to an upper-class quarrel over an event at a party in which a young girl had her hair cut.The incident itself was petty and stupid, but the families of the parties involved were taking it very seriously.Pope, then, wrote this poem in epic form (the most grand of poetic forms) to show the absurdity of the matter, and thus reconcile the offender and offended.

That is the first function of this poem.Even though the incident is long forgotten, the poem is still very funny.But there is a greater purpose to this poem--it was written like an epic.It contains several epic elements--an epic battle (at the card game), the invocation of muses and gods, the epic quest (to cut the hair), and several literary devices, such as epic-length similes and catalogs.This is what makes this poem so great, and what serves as a testimony to Pope's remarkable genius for wit and satire.

Pope was, in my opinion, one of the greatest English poets, certainly the greatest satirist.This is one of his greatest works, and it is short enough to read over and over again without investing too much time.

Brilliantly written with wit, style, and a flair for detail.
This is a highly intelligent book on one of the finest poems by the eighteenth century's most celebrated poet.Brilliantly written with wit, style, and a flair for interesting detail, Wall's book includes textual informationand a wealth of carefully selected secondary material that makes this "one-stop shopping" for anyone interested in the work or indeed in the period.Because of its combination of lively writing and scholarly erudition, I would recommend Wall's book for a wide variety of interest and knowledge levels.Wonderful Bedford series idea and terrific book. ... Read more

Product Description
This is the first book to explore the influence of Japanese art on Aubrey Beardsley's work. Placing Japanese woodblock prints in the English and French cultural milieu of the last third of the Victorian era, Professor Zatlin examines Beardsley's technical and thematic adaptions of Japanese art. She shows how Japanese art enabled Beardsley to create his striking and personal style - one which permanently changed book illustration on three continents. This study is simultaneously a history of the British and French reception of Japanese art, and an examination of the ways Beardsley subverted both Victorian notions of the grotesque and male habits of viewing women. Establishing many of his sources, this book traces Beardsley's revelation of the tensions between the concepts of vice and virtue in a combination of opposites which disconcerted and threatened many viewers of the 1890s. ... Read more

Product Description
Here is an evocative and beautifully illustrated volume of Aubrey Beardsley's sensitive, mischievous, and erotic art that came to represent the decadent spirit of the 1890s. This comprehensive survey includes the seductive illustrations to Lysistrata and works that were originally suppressed or limited. Today, Beardsley's art seems as modern as ever, a century after his death. ... Read more

Product Description
Offers reproductions of works by the increasingly acclaimedand influential English artist, ranging from Le Morte d'Arthur to Lysistrata. ... Read more

Product Description
For most of his short working life, a fierce debate raged in Britain over the merit of Aubrey Beardsley's black and white drawings. Applauded for their technical skill, though often deplored for their "slimy nastiness". This book examines the critical reception of Beardsley's work, and how it illuminates not only how Beardsley's controversial reputation was formed, but also casts light on two key issues in art history and literary studies - the relationship between word and image, and between critical response and national identity. The author records the British response to Beardsley, the English critics' suspicion of French influence on his style, and the way in which the perception of his life and art articulated the fears and anxieties of the English fin-de-siecle. The book also examines the critical response to Beardsley in France, revealing a different set of preoccupations. ... Read more

Product Description
This joint centennial edition of Salome and Under theHill, united by seventeen of Beardsley's unsurpassable drawings, is atimely rehabilitation of these two all-too-often ignored fin-de-siecletexts, and constitues a volume of unadulterated Decadent Erotica whichmust surely stand as the apogee of its kind.

Censored, banned, and ridiculed upon publication, Oscar Wilde'sSalome, written in 1892 in the French language, must now be viewed asone of the greatest of all Decadent texts; an aesthetic masterworkwhich has seldom been accorded due respect.

Salome is an evocation of biblical horror in which blasphemiesabound. More than this, its atmosphere seethes with a dangerous eroticcharge from the very outset. Relentless, hypnotic repetitions in thewords, arranged in fugue candences, the tale unfolds with theinexorable acceleration of an orgasmic nightmare.

Aubrey Beardsley's Under the Hill, a short work commenced in1894, but left unfinished at the time of Beardsley's premature demise,nonetheless achieves the quintessence of Decadence, an evocation of asynaesthetic pleasure dome. A unique and indispensable text for anywho seek the uttermost extremes of the manifest imagination. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Fascinating and Fantastic Compilation!
This excellent volume contains both Wilde's famous play "Salome" (and the illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley which accompanied its original publication) and Beardsley's own literary offering, "Under the Hill," accompanied by Beardsley's illustrations for this work."Salome" is a masterfully-written landmark of fin-de-siecle literature which helped to craft our modern conception of the femme fatale.It is arguably one of Oscar Wilde's most interesting (and underrated) works.The illustrations by Beardsley created a scandal when they accompanied "Salome" in its first publication.They created a firestorm in the press, and they completely upstaged Wilde's work, straining relations between Beardsley and Wilde from then onward.Approaching "Salome" and its illustrations as a modern reader, one is struck by the relative tameness of the illustrations, and the enduring power of Wilde's play.

"Under the Hill" is definitely the stranger and more obscure of the two offerings.Although Beardsley considered himself a man of letters as much as a visual artist, it is his only literary offering.Although it remained incomplete at the time of his early death, even in its unfinished state it makes quite an impression!It is absolutely, wildly filthy (it chronicles the sexual escapades of Venus and her lovers, and even includes one scene in which Venus gets very friendly with her pet unicorn), yet is written in the most delicate, refined, and highly perfumed language.All in all, it is witty, bizarre, and highly unique.It is a wonderful hidden gem of the fin-de-siecle period, in all its decadence and dandyism.

My only (very minor) complaint with this book is that the illustrations would have benefitted from being slightly larger.

The decadence of Wilde and Beardsley
Beardsley's illustrations for Wilde's "Salome" are quite well known. I enjoyed seeing them, in unexpurgated forms, in the context of the script they were meant to adorn. I think I can see wonderful possibilities in staging that play, where modern sensibilities could show and accept what England of 1892 could not. Even so, I found the script itself somewhat repetitive, with more in it to startle than to explain. Perhaps there's a knack to reading this script that I haven't mastered.

The second piece, Beardsley's own "Under the Hill," is a mortal's visit to the kingdom of Venus, the goddess of love. Although the story has revolting moments, it's easy to become drugged by the thick perfume of his flowery language. The elegant circumlocutions sometimes narrate, other times only suggest effete debauches. The brief story sustains an oddly split mood, comical for its excesses and affectations, darkly fascinating for its content. Beardsley's life was cut short in his 20s, leaving this story unfinished. I have to wonder whether I would actually have wanted to read its entirety.

Neither story will suit polite company, nor was meant to. Both, however, give little insights into artists that are still appreciated today. These particular insights may not be 'fun' or 'likeable', but add real information to any view of Wilde or Beardsley.

//wiredweird

Great re-printing of a neglected play!
Oscar Wilde's SALOME is perfect for the phrase "neglected masterpiece".It is exciting and gorgeously written.There is also a constant feeling of vitality.We are thrown into the middle of a tensesituation and (despite the jewel-like language) no time is wasted ingetting to the tragic conclusion.Perhaps the only flaw is the lack ofwell drawn characters but this is rarely felt due to the beauty andstrength of Wilde's writing.Many would find SALOME anti-Christian.Thiswouldn't bother me at all but if you read carefully you'll notice all theoffensive elements are in the pagan characters.John the Baptist staysvirtuous.I'd love to see a good performance.Aubrey Beardsley's UNDERTHE HILL is interesting but never very memorable.The illustrations aregreat but I'm not sure they are all in the right place. This book is a musthave for all lovers of aestheticism and SALOME should be read by all.

Beardsley's best work?
Along with his superb illustrations for Malory's Morte Darthur, still very much in the style of Burne-Jones, Salome is surely Beardsley's masterpiece. Stylized to an extreme degree, his illustrations also manage to be both erotic and strangely touching. He is more than a cold stylist, but a masterof the extreme emotions which lie behind Wilde's strange text. This, thoughrepreatedly dismissed as absurd, has turned out to be one of the toughestworks of the late nineteenth century decadent movement. Although rarelyperformed as a play, it lives on as the libretto for Richard Strauss'sgreat opera, a work that has continued to fascinate and horrify audiencesfor nearly a century. The unfinished fantasy Under the Hill is worthcollecting too, and this economical volume is a bargain. ... Read more

Product Description
A series with silk-ribbon markers and headbands, gold stamping on front and spine, and the original colour illustrations on the jackets. This version of the legends of King Arthur was first published in 1953, and the illustrations are those with which Beardsley made his name in 1893, aged 20. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Between Good and Evil
King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table is a version of the classic legends, constructed by Roger Lancelyn Green. The story is set in Britain in the early medieval period. It has an odd and somewhat confusing mixture of English and French origination, as it is set in Britain (and the story of King Arthur is generally considered a British legend); yet the author explains that the stories initially came from old French sources, which is reflected in some names of people and places.

The book follows the complete life of King Arthur, from before his birth to the time when he is mortally wounded and disappears. The middle is like a collection of short stories, mostly about King Arthur's various knights and each with their own plot; yet the stories are all part of a bigger picture and plot--mainly, the quest of King Arthur's evil half-sister, Morgana le Fay, to destroy his kingdom; and later, the quest of the mysterious Holy Grail. However, all suspense is spoiled as the good magician, Merlin, who helps Arthur in the beginning of the book, tells Arthur several times about all sorts of things that will happen later.

Although it is overall an enjoyable story, some details are inaccurate, confusing, or outdated. For example, in the book there are several instances where men are made knights spontaneously, on the spot, whereas really this was a process which took more time and was done more carefully. Another example is that several knights are described as "the best of all knights, except for..." (or something very similar), resulting in a complicated and confusing hierarchy of knights.Besides this, there are mentions of places and holidays, such as "Michaelmas," that are unheard-of in modern times.

King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table is a unique mixture of Magic and God, chivalry and scandal, treachery, and most of all, adventure. It will transport you into another world, where anything is possible.
... Read more

Product Description
This brand new digital edition of Oscar Wilde's infamous play Salomé features the full text in original French, as well as the English translation, both decorated by Aubrey Beardsley's much-loved Art Nouveau illustrations. It also includes "A Note on Salomé" by Wilde's friend and literary executor, Robert Ross.

Use the active Table of Contents to quickly move between the breathtaking full-page illustrations and compare passages in French and English or leisurely browse the lyrical and grotesque tale of Herod's promise, Salomé's dance, and John the Baptist's gruesome fate.

All sixteen of Aubrey Beardsley's classic illustrations are published in full detail and specially restored to look flawless on your Kindle. Some of the most well-known pieces produced by Beardsley, these beautiful drawings exemplify the fin-de-sicle decadence and ornament characteristic of the Aesthetic movement. ... Read more