Under The Hill

The tragic life of Beardsley (illustrator of "The Yellow Book," and Oscar Wilde's Salome) was, in addition to his untimely death at age 25, further marred by censorship. The famed illustrator had compiled his erotic text "Story of Venus and Tannhauser" into a couple of underground editions, but was only able to publish expurgated versions of the work in a magazine known as "The Savoy"--Beardsley was dismissed from the Yellow Book, a publication he had helped found, because of his friendship with Wilde, when the latter was seen holding a yellow book prior to his arrest on charges of homosexuality. Anyway, in '59, Glassco, author of The English Governess, joins Beardsley's illustrations with the deceased author's unfinished manuscripts of the story. Adding in his own bits here and there, voila, we have "Under the Hill," a kind of fairy tale for adults, featuring Tannhauser, a German hero of myth and the Venus, goddess of love, some wild parties, and sex without repercussion. Additional: This work was compiled from multiple versions, and we noticed that some chose different Beardsley woodcuts for a Rhinegold scene. Rather than let anyone down, we included both graphics among the eight woodcuts.