ILLUSTRATIONS TO EDGAR ALLEN POE

First edition of [in the words of the Poe bibliographer James R. Canny] "a phoney book & phoney drawings". Publisher's original black cloth with gilt illustration to the upper board. Illustrated with a tipped in portrait frontispiece and 17 full page illustrations of which only four drawings are actually by Aubrey Beardsley, the remaining 13 being forgeries previously exhibited, published (and probably drawn) by the New York bookseller H. S. Nichols. A near fine copy, the binding square and firm with a little wear at the extremities, the cloth and gilt bright and fresh. The contents with mild toning to the paper are otherwise clean throughout and without previous owners' marks.

An astonishing publication of fraud, forgery and incompetence (not limited to the compiler's inability to correctly spell the name of either Poe (everywhere), or Beardsley (in the spurious attribution of 'Self-portrait of Aubrey Bearsley dying'). Seemingly produced in a limited edition of 107 copies for members of The [fictitious] Aubrey Beardsley Club, this example is numbered 73 to the limitation page. Given the less than honourable production values, the limitation statement probably shouldn't be relied upon. (Lasner, Mark Samuels: A Selective Checklist of the Published Work of Aubrey Beardsley, 80c & 222; Heartman and Canny: A Bibliography Of First Printings Of The Writings Of Edgar Allan Poe).