THE UNCOLLECTED WORK OF AUBREY BEAFtDSLEY. - (John Lane. The Bodley
Head. £2 2s. net.) MR. LEWIS limn, in his introduction, puts the consideration- which must strike anyone who studies this massive collection,
composed as to more than half of the roughest of rough notes by Aubrey Beardsley, or of Juvenilia, almost entirely devoid: Of interest. " I am inclined to think," he says, " Beardsley: would have been dismayed could he have had prevision that• these ephemera would ever appear in his Collected Work. This is the penalty of greatness." It is, but Mr. Hind might have left it to somebody else to inflict it had he not " come to the conclusion that the publishers have done well to bring these juvenile efforts together, for only thus can we obtain a complete view of this genius . . ." It is, however, difficult to see how' this conclusion is compatible with Beardsley's last intimate and agonized letter which Mr. Hind publishes, no doubt for the best of reasons. In the light of that, one could be certain that, whoever may welcome this • collection, Beardsley would have condemned it. The book, like its predecessors, is handsomely produced, but without particular distinction.
Previous page
