Tuesday, March 12, 2013

The Yellow Book

I am excited to find that archive.org has the complete set of The Yellow Journal, the magazine of Aesthetic and Decadent art and literature published between 1894 to 1897. It's importance is mostly due to Aubrey Beardsley--the Art Nouveau illustrator known for his erotic themes--being the art editor.

Because of his association with Oscar Wilde, Beardsley only worked on the first five issues. Wilde's arrest in 1895 for "gross indecency" was not something many of the other contributors wanted to be connected to, and so the publisher felt forced to fire Beardsley. A nice summary can be found here.

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