Shorter Notices
A Beardsley Miscellany. Selected and Edited by R. A. Walker.
(Bodley Head. 42s. Edition limited to 500 copies.)
" SURELY this must be the last Beardsley book ? " Even his most ardent admirers might have asked themselves this question when The Uncollected Work of Aubrey Beardsley appeared in 1925, or when Mr. R. A. Walker published The Best of Beardsley last year, and they may repeat it sotto voce as they turn the sumptuous pages of Mr. Walker's new volume. But such is the spell that is still cast by the unique genius of this youth, who died at the age of twenty- five more than fifty years ago, that there will always be readers for anything that really adds to our knowledge of him and his work. Beardsley may not have a strong superficial appeal to the uninitiated
— it may be that at first sight he arouses antipathy as often as delight — but to artists and those who care for art his incomparable blend of technical mastery and grotesque romanticism make him irre- sistible. Mr. Walker has already given devoted service to Beardsley's memory, and his " Notes on the Family of Aubrey Beardsley," together with Mrs. Beardsley's short unpublished sketch of her son's life, form the most interesting pages of this miscellany. But there is also a valuable article by D. S. MacColl, commissioned by a Russian magazine in 1898 and now published in England for the first time, and there are several hitherto unpublished or little-known sketches and photographs, and other Beardsleyana. Whether Beardsley's story of Venus and Tannhiiuser is worth the space given to it is highly doubtful ; its chief importance is certainly that it inspired the magnificent illustrations which here accompany as much of the text as can properly be printed.
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