The Rape of the Lock: An Heroi-Comical Poem in Five Cantos; Embroidered with eleven drawings by Aubrey Beardsley

This rare and petite book features eleven drawings by Aubrey Beardsley, and also an ORIGINAL COVER DESIGN by Beardsley, unique to this edition. This edition followed the illustrated quarto published by Smithers a year earlier. This book was published in a limited edition of 1000 copies, and printed on art paper. An exquisite & quite distinctive objet d'art, it has become known as the "Bijou" edition. BIJOU Pronunciation: 'bE-"zhü Function: noun Etymology: French, from Breton bizou ring, from biz finger 1 : a small dainty usually ornamental piece of delicate workmanship : JEWEL 2 : something delicate, elegant, or highly prized. As John Russell Taylor notes in The Art Nouveau Book in Britain: "The designs for the Rape of the Lock are certainly a unique tour de force, both imaginatively and technically. Instead of the bold, clear juxtapositions of black and white, the glitter and sparkle of the Salome drawings, everything here is light and fragile, fine and graceful as gossamer. Beardsley has not abandoned altogether his earlier decorative conventions: the compositions are still devised with extreme skill to suppress all evidence of recession, to preserve the spatial ambiguity which has always been such a telling feature of his work- the Rape of the Lock drawings are very much, like their predecessors, patterns in two dimensions. But here the form of the patterns has changed radically; the hard, clean lines of the earlier work have been dissolved in many places into shimmering threads of tiny dots, suggesting with extraordinary vividness and economy flounces of fine lace and delicate embroidery. [...] In general the series may be regarded as one of Beardsley's most complete achievements- as well as one of his most immediately influential. " The Rape of the Lock is a mock-heroic poem written by Alexander Pope, first published in 1712.