EILY --- The Muse of Austin Osman Spare by Wallace, Dr. William

London: Jerusalem Press, 2016. Limited to 700 numbered copies. A FINE PREMIUM CLOTH COPY, sewn, with illustrated endpapers, head and tail bands, and an illustrated dust jacket. Special Color Lithography featuring two sections of eighty color plates [some unpublished anywhere], and over fifty black and white images in the text. At the center of Spare's literary and philosophical orbit is Eily Shaw, the wife of Austin Spare, and has remained in the shadows in all previous studies of Spare. For the first time, her influence on Spare's art, and, in particular, his life, is measured. During the intense period in which he produced THE BOOK OF PLEASURE, she became, and was his muse. In this work, a drawing originally intended for that book is reproduced, together with a key section revolving around the notions of the irrational implicit to what is considered Spare's magnum opus. William Wallace, the author of the CATALPA MONOGRAPHS, presents an in depth analysis of Austin Spare's artistic debt to a myriad of sources, including Theatre, Shakespeare, the Classics, Lewis Carroll and Nietzsche. He also assesses Spare's Tarot deck, revealing his early awareness of Alchemical symbolism as well as the influence of William Hogarth's satires on "Earth: Inferno" and "A Book of Satyrs". Also featured: A biographical sketch by Alison Henry (Eily's granddaughter), revealing key details for the first time. A fascinating survey of the role of the Muses and Oracles in the Greek myths by Caroline Wise, which also includes a beautiful painting by AOS of the Delphic Oracle, here reproduced in color for the first time. An Afterword by Stephen Pochin examines Spare's appropriation of depictions of actresses from Edwardian theatre postcards with several key stars of the period ending up in "A Book of Satyrs". Pochin also offers the solution to a mystery, being the identification of the model who replaced Eily in his drawings of nudes from 1919-22, some of which appeared in "The Golden Hind". 250 pages. Tall 8vo.