$1,260
Estimate: $400 - $600
Auction: May 20, 2021 1:00:00 PM EDT
London: Leonard Smithers and Co, 1899. First edition (one of 300 copies printed). 8vo. (xii), 50, (2) pp. Title-page in red and black. Original full vellum, decoratively stamped in gilt with a design by Althea Gyles; all edges untrimmed; offsetting and foxing to prelims and rear endpapers; old catalogue slip mounted to rear paste-down; in green cloth fall-down-back box. A near-fine copy. Lasner 219.
"Cover design sometimes erroneously attributed to (Aubrey) Beardsley...According to Dowson's biographer and editor Mark Longaker, 'Guy Harrison, who supplied the bibliography for Victor Plarr's Ernest Dowson (1914), was in error in naming Aubrey Beardsley as the designer of the cover.' Longaker attributes the entire design to the artist Althea Gyles, whose monogram (an 'A' within a heart) is found only on the back cover. Other commentators have ascribed the front cover to Pickford Waller." (Lasner 219)