Ben Jonson & Aubrey Beardsley — Volpone: or The Foxe, Limited First Beardsley Edition No. 424/1000 (1898)

JONSON, BEN; illustrated and designed by AUBREY BEARDSLEY.
Ben Jonson: His Volpone; or, The Foxe.
London: Leonard Smithers and Co., 1898.

First Beardsley-illustrated edition of Ben Jonson’s celebrated satirical comedy, published shortly after the artist’s death at the age of 25.

With a critical essay on Jonson by Vincent O’Sullivan and a substantial eulogy of Beardsley by his friend and literary executor Robert Ross. Illustrated and decorated with Beardsley’s elaborate frontispiece, five ornamental initial letters, and his gilt binding design.

Beardsley proposed the project to publisher Leonard Smithers and initially envisioned as many as 24 illustrations. His declining health allowed him to complete only the binding, frontispiece, and decorative initials before his death on March 16, 1898. The frontispiece, Volpone Adoring His Treasure, became one of the artist’s best-known late compositions and reflects the increasingly modeled, richly shaded style of his final work.

One of 1,000 numbered copies printed on art paper for England and America; this is copy 424. Publisher’s original blue-green cloth, elaborately stamped in gilt on the covers and spine.

With the bookplate of Luigi Cora on the front pastedown.

Edition: First Beardsley-illustrated edition, no. 424 of 1,000 copies.
Illustrations: Frontispiece and five ornamental initials by Aubrey Beardsley, with his gilt binding design.
Format: Quarto, 29 × 21.5 cm (approximately 11¼ × 8½ inches).
Condition: Minor rubbing and wear to the boards and extremities. Endpapers lightly toned and page edges somewhat worn; very good overall.