The Savoy. by BEARDSLEY, Aubrey (illus.), Arthur Symons, (ed.) - January - December, 1896

London: Leonard Smithers,, January - December, 1896. An Illustrated Quarterly. 8 volumes, quarto. Vols. 1 and 2 in the original pink decorated boards, vols. 3-8 in blue-green illustrated wrappers as issued. Advertisements to the rear of all vols. and to front of vol. 1. Green cloth slipcases. Housed in a green flat-back cloth box by the Chelsea Bindery. Illustrated throughout by Beardsley and numerous others. Subtle reinforcement to front hinge of first two volumes, front wrapper of vol 4 discreetly reattached, some minor chipping and rubbing to extremities, still a very good set indeed. The complete run, in the original boards and wrappers as issued, of Beardsley and Symons's Savoy periodical, with the Beardsley illustrated Christmas card laid-into vol. 1. Leonard Smithers created The Savoy as an alternative to The Yellow Book, and enlisted Aubrey Beardsley as art director. Beardsley, fresh from being dropped by The Yellow Book for his connections with Oscar Wilde, set to work eagerly. The periodical ran for eight issues between January and December 1896, Beardsley's "Annus Mirabilis" (R. A. Walker), during which short time Beardsley produced some of his finest illustrations, his style having reached maturity since his dismissal from The Yellow Book. The Savoy published some of the great writers and artists of the day including literary works by: Max Beerbohm, Joseph Conrad, Ford Maddox Hueffer, Selwyn Image, George Bernard Shaw, and W. B. Yeats; and artistic content by: William Blake (the July, August & September issues half-dedicated to a showcase of Blake's Dante watercolours), Dante Gabriel Rossetti, W. Rothenstein, Walter Sickert, and J. McNeill Whistler. The content of the final, December, issue is contributed entirely by Beardsley and Symons and includes a translation of Mallarmé's Herodiade, and a memoir of a trip to the Isle of Aran, preceding J. M. Synge's famous trip by two years. A three volume bound collection of the eight journals was issued by the publishers at the end of the run. Scarce found complete and as issued.