Salome, Oscar Wilde, Aubrey Beardsley, Very Good + HD, Good DJ

Wilde, Oscar, and Aubrey Beardsley, Garden City, New York: Halcyon House, Very Good + 8vo, 5 ½” x 8”, 121 pp.

Very Good + octavo cream paper over boards with black and yellow wrapped design, black title to spine, discoloration to page edges by sunning, flyer for Operatic Version held December 9^th, 1905, Königliches Opernhaus in Dresden, Good paper dust jacket, black with illustration with cream title to front cover and spine, cream with black lettering to back cover, ¼”x ½” tear to front top tip, 1” x ½” tear to top spine edge, ¼” x ½” tear to back top edge, considerable edgewear, sunning to back cover, now protected in Mylar, 121 pp. 16 black-and-white drawings by Aubrey Beardsley. The book mentions the play being performed on May 10^th and 13^th, 1905, in England, for the first time, with the casting listed. A one-act tragedy about Salomé and her desire for Jokanaan, also known as John the Baptist, who is imprisoned by her uncle, King Herod. She dances for her uncle and in return asks for Jokanaan’s head on a platter, which he fulfills. The author, Oscar Wilde, was a Irish writer, poet, and playwright who sought fame in London in the early 1880s. The illustrator, Aubrey Beardsley, was an English illustrator and author who was a leading figure in the Art Nouveau movement, along with Oscar Wilde. Owing both to the play's depiction of a biblical character--and to Beardsley's provocative illustrations, which depicted a woman in a position of power--the play aroused controversy and backlash at the time of its publishing.