Aubrey Beardsley's The Story of Venus and Tannhauser

A romantic novel in which is set forth an exact account of the manner of State held by Madam Venus, Goddess and Meretrix, under the famous Horselberg, and containing the Adventures of Tannhauser in that Palace, his repentance, his journeying to Rome and return to the Loving Mountain. Aubrey Beardsley was one of the most controversial artists of the Art Nouveau era, renowned for his dark and perverse images and the grotesque erotic themes which he explored in his later work. His eroticism is manifest, and must be accepted as simply as the fact that he had auburn hair and long hands.