Our Notes & References

First edition -a press copy- of this early and extensive Russian publication on the great English artist, “the most comprehensive information on Beardsley’s work and life available to Russian readers at that time” (Pikuleva, our translation here and elsewhere), with a fine selection of oeuvres, including some never published in Russia before (Likiardopulo) and much international bibliographical material.

Rare outside Russia: OCLC locates only three holdings (Princeton, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the British Library, apparently the only copy in Great Britain); we could trace only another copy passing through auction in recent decades (back in 2008). Often incomplete or in bad condition in Russia: we could trace a copy at the Moscow RGB (incomplete) and one at the RNB in St. Petersburg.

Timed to coincide with Beardsley’s (1872-98) 40th anniversary, the edition asserts that “now, 15 years after his death, while England is only beginning to recognize his exceptional talent, it is time for Russia, which has long appreciated and acknowledged Beardsley, to take stock” (Likiardopulo’s preface). Discovered in the mid-1890s by the ‘Mir Iskusstva’ [‘World of Art’] group of Russian aesthetes, the circulation of his work in Russia began with the opening volume of their eponymous periodical in 1899.

“Beardsley was soon fashioned into a cultural icon” (Dovzhyk): he became very influential, his style being gradually absorbed as the guiding principle of modern Russian design and modernist art. It is recognisable in other artists’ production, such as Nikolai Feofilaktov (1871-1948, even called ‘the Moscow Beardsley’). “In literature, Beardsley’s name was integrated into the vast body of modernist poetry and prose, with homages from authors as different as Andrei Bely, Anatolii Mariengof, and Aleksei Lozina-Lozinskii, to name but a few” (Dovzhyk).

In his preface, the editor and translator Mikhail Likiardopulo notes that “meanwhile, the general public, and to some extent artists as well, are acquainted with Beardsley’s work primarily through scattered notes and reproductions in various journals, or through Russian and German editions, many of which contain numerous inaccuracies and absurdities […] Our task was to compile a more or less comprehensive collection of factual information on Beardsley’s work, along with a carefully verified biography and iconography, […] to enable anyone interested in serious study of his work to do so”. Likiardopoulo extends his thanks to the authors of two monographs, Robert Ross and Arthur Symons, for granting permission to translate their works for this edition and for “the valuable guidance they provided in facilitating the compilation of this volume”.

Aside from a few appearances in periodicals, earlier individual Russian works on Beardsley are limited to a plate book without any text compiled by Konstantin Somov (Skorpion, 1906) and Nikolai Evreinov’s monograph, also published in 1912.

The only previous publication of Beardsley’s literary work in Russian appeared in the magazine Vesy [The Scales] in 1905: the unfinished erotic “novella Under the Hill, in its highly censored form, was published in translation in Vesy in November 1905. In 1907 a limited-release, less heavily censored English version [titled The Story of Venus and Tannhäuser] was available in England and in Russia, and this fuller version was translated by M. Likiardopulo. This translation was published, again in chastened form, in 1912″ in our present edition (Blackwell).

The volume additionally has Beardsley’s poems “The Three Musicians” and “The Ballad of a Barber”, his aphorisms “Table Talk”, and “Selected letters”, translated by Likiardopulo and the Silver-age poet Mikhail Kuzmin.

The book is supplemented with articles by Joseph Pennell and Vittorio Pica, as well as a 30-page detailed iconography by Aymer Vallance, organised into the various stages of Beardsley’s life. It also includes a bibliography of works about Beardsley in multiple languages, and an exhaustive reference list of all the images used in this edition, including vignettes, initials, and their original sources. Among the illustrations are Beardsley’s self-portrait and portrait after Frederick H. Evans’ photograph, a facsimile of Beardsley’s suicide letter to Leonard Smithers, and an attractive chromolithograph “Isolde” set against a bright red background.

Provenance

Publisher’s blue ink stamp “dlia otzyva” [“for review”] on half title, including a “humble request to deliver a copy of the newspaper or magazine in which the review will appear” to the publisher’s address in Moscow; “printed in Russia” stamp (upper wrapper).

Bibliography

Blackwell, Stephen H. “Aubrey Beardsley and Lolita”. Proceedings of the Vladimir Nabokov Symposium, Vladimir Nabokov Museum, 2003; Dovzhyk, Sasha. “Audrey Beardsley in the Russian ‘World of Art'” // British Art Studies, Issue 18; Pikuleva, Irina. Problema sinteza v literaturnom nasledii Obri Berdsli, Permskii Gosudarstvennyi Universitet, 2008.