The Yellow Book : an illustrated quarterly.

London : Elkin Mathews & John Lane; Boston, MA: Copeland & Day, 1894 – 97. Thirteen volumes, octavo, black-stamped yellow cloth; lightly marked, corners a little bumped, top edges dust soiled, a very good mixed set. Vol. 1: 272 (reprint with “April” corrected on front cover, repaired tear to foot of spine); Vol. 2, reprint, (362) pp. without publisher’s ads; Vol. 3, first edition, (280), 6 pp. of ads; Vol. IV, first edition, (286), index to publisher’s announcements, ads 16, ads 15, [1 blank] pp. (unopened); Vol. V, 317, [1 blank], 4 ads, 16 ads, 6 pp. describing contents of The Yellow Book]; Vol. VI; reprint, 335, [1 blank]; Vol. VII, first edition, (320), 7, [1 blank] ads, 16 ads pp.; Vol. VIII, reprint, (406); Vol. IX, 256, [2], 4 ads, 16 ads; Vol. X, First edition, 344, 6, ads, 16 ads pp.; Vol. XI, reprint, 342 pp.; Vol. XII, reprint, 344; Vol. XIII, (318) pp. Illustrations throughout; tissue guards, occasional light foxing.

A complete set of an important international literary and artistic icon: arguably the most important and influential periodical of the Art Nouveau period.

The Yellow Book was an illustrated quarterly magazine devoted to literature, art and aesthetics, published in London from 1894 to 1897. Aubrey Beardsley was the founding editor until his association with Oscar Wilde resulted in his dismissal, following Wilde’s arrest. The Yellow Book consistently featured highly important avant-garde artists and writers (Pennel, Houseman, Sickert, Beerbohm, Australian artist Charles Conder, Kenneth Grahame, W.B. Yeats, Walter Crane, Arnold Bennett, Charlotte Mew, Henry James, Edmund Goose, Richard Le Gallienne, etc. etc.) who came to typify the artistic and literary movements of the time. The publication went through a number of reprints from the late 1890s through to around 1920, which are notoriously difficult to identify.

Denny, The Yellow Book : A Selection (1949), notes: “All the volumes [of The Yellow Book] were reprinted. They were, however, not sold to the trade in the ordinary way, but were circulated by what can only be described as irregular methods and passed off as first editions. A later generation at the Bodley Head makes this painful avowal in the interests of truth.” Lasner remarks: “… it appears that since the ‘original issue’ meant to include publishers’ advertisements bound in at back, no volume without the advertisements can be a true first edition.” Lasner also notes that an edition statement has been printed on the front cover of certain subsequent issues, and remarks upon the word “April” on the front cover of Vol. I.

REFERENCES:

Denny, The Yellow Book: A Selection, in the “Bibliography Note” at the front of the volume;

Lasner, The Yellow Book: A Checklist and Index, pp. 9-10.