Aubery Beardsley and John Gray, significant figures in the aesthetic or decadent publishing of the 1890s were seen as disciples of Wilde. Both, though, would begin to reject the older man's influence. Beardsley was disappointed with Wilde's censoring of his drawings for Salomé. Gray struggled with his homosexuality, and later became a priest.

Shown here is the envelope of a letter from Beardsley to Gray congratulating him on his Spiritual Poems (1896): "Your muse always seems to me the most successful creature & the most satisfactory."

Aubrey Beardsley and John Gray, significant figures of the aesthetic or decadent publishing of the 1890s, were seen as disciples of Wilde. Both, though, would begin to reject the older man's influence. Beardsley was disappointed with Wilde's censoring of his drawings for Salomé. Gray struggled with his homosexuality, and later became a priest.

Shown here is the second page of a letter from Beardsley to Gray congratulating him on his Spiritual Poems (1896): "Your muse always seems to me the most successful creature & the most satisfactory."

Aubery Beardsley and John Gray, significant figures in the aesthetic or decadent publishing of the 1890s were seen as disciples of Wilde. Both, though, would begin to reject the older man's influence. Beardsley was disappointed with Wilde's censoring of his drawings for Salomé. Gray struggled with his homosexuality, and later became a priest.

Shown here is the first page of a letter from Beardsley to Gray congratulating him on his Spiritual Poems (1896) "Your muse always seems to me the most successful creature & the most satisfactory."

As the edition of Salomé shows, Wilde was a driving figure in a remarkable age of fine publishing. Further examples of Wilde's influence begins with John Gray's Silverpoints. From a working-class background, John Gray became a clerk in the Foreign Office. In 1889, he met Oscar Wilde and the artist-designers, Charles Ricketts and Charles Shannon. Gray wrote for Ricketts and Shannon's journal, The Dial, and he became an intimate friend of Wilde.

Young and handsome, Gray was claimed by some to be the physical model for Wilde's diabolic hero in The Picture of Dorian Gray. Wilde encourage Gray's poetry, and offered to underwrite the costs for Silverpoints. Published by Lane and Mathews in 1893, Silverpoints has an unusually narrow format, and an elegant green and gold design that Wilde commissioned from Ricketts.

With sixteen original poems, and translations of Baudelaire, Mallarmé, Verlain and Rimbaud, Silverpoints established Gray as a notable decadent writer. It was the slender Silverpoints that Wilde's friend Ada Leverson had in mind when she mocked the decadent publishing as presenting "the tiniest rivulent of text meandering through the largest meadow of margin."

Beardsley rose to fame as illustrator and art editor of the journal, The Yellow Book, and also through his association with Wilde. The association with Wilde would cost Beardsley. It was reported that when Wilde was arrested, he had been holding a copy of The Yellow Book.

The publisher, John Lane (who had broken with his partner, Mathews, in 1894), blamed Beardsley for this bad publicity, and dismissed him from his post on the journal. He was offered work on a new journal, The Savoy, in 1896, and shown here is one of the designs for the Savoy catalogues. But the "Beardsley Boom" was over. The Savoy ceased publication after only eight issues.

Beardsley died of tuberculosis in 1898, at the age of 25. John Lane remained loyal to Beardsley after his fashion. Letters in the archive at the University of Reading show that he was still trying to provide Beardsley's aged mother with and income, twenty-five years after the artist's death.

Beardsley rose to fame as illustrator and art editor of the journal, The Yellow Book, and also through his association with Wilde. The association with Wilde would cost Beardsley. It was reported that when Wilde was arrested, he had been holding a copy of The Yellow Book.

The publisher, John Lane (who had broken with his partner, Mathews, in 1894), blamed Beardsley for this bad publicity, and dismissed him from his post on the journal. He was offered work on a new journal, The Savoy, in 1896, and shown here is one of the designs for the Savoy catalogues. But the "Beardsley Boom" was over. The Savoy ceased publication after only eight issues.

Beardsley died of tuberculosis in 1898, at the age of 25. John Lane remained loyal to Beardsley after his fashion. Letters in the archive at the University of Reading show that he was still trying to provide Beardsley's aged mother with and income, twenty-five years after the artist's death.

Beardsley rose to fame as illustrator and art editor of the journal, The Yellow Book, and also through his association with Wilde. Here is the first volume of The Yellow Book, with Beardsley's design for the cover. The association with Wilde would cost Beardsley. It was reported that when Wilde was arrested, he had been holding a copy of The Yellow Book.

The publisher, John Lane (who had broken with his partner, Mathews, in 1894), blamed Beardsley for this bad publicity, and dismissed him from his post on the journal. He was offered work on a new journal, The Savoy, in 1896. But the "Beardsley Boom" was over. The Savoy ceased publication after only eight issues.

Beardsley died of tuberculosis in 1898, at the age of 25. John Lane remained loyal to Beardsley after his fashion. Letters in the archive at the University of Reading show that he was still trying to provide Beardsley's aged mother with and income, twenty-five years after the artist's death.

The couple, artist Charles Shannon and designer, Charles Ricketts, founded the magazine, The Dial, in 1889. They published it sporadically, with the fifth and last issue appearing in 1897. They sent the first issue to Wilde, who responded enthusiastically to its extravagant large format. He urged them "Do not bring out a second number, all perfect things should be unique."

Published in small numbers in a very expensive format (with large pages of handmade paper, wide margins, and many specially commissioned illustrations), and containing no advertising, The Dial took aesthetic publishing to exceptional lengths. It exemplified the idea that the book or journal should be an object of beauty in itself, and not simply a repository of text.

Shannon and Ricketts went on to design and decorate a number of Wilde's books, including the novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, the collection of short stories, A House of Pomegranates, and the plays, Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husband, and The Importance of Being Earnest.

The couple, artist Charles Shannon and designer, Charles Ricketts, founded the magazine, The Dial, in 1889. They published it sporadically, with the fifth and last issue appearing in 1897. They sent the first issue to Wilde, who responded enthusiastically to its extravagant large format. He urged them "Do not bring out a second number, all perfect things should be unique."

Published in small numbers in a very expensive format (with large pages of handmade paper, wide margins, and many specially commissioned illustrations), and containing no advertising, The Dial took aesthetic publishing to exceptional lengths. It exemplified the idea that the book or journal should be an object of beauty in itself, and not simply a repository of text.

Shannon and Ricketts went on to design and decorate a number of Wilde's books, including the novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, the collection of short stories, A House of Pomegranates, and the plays, Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husband, and The Importance of Being Earnest.