B6 The Yellow Book

Table of Contents

B6-a First edition

Title Page

Launch

Description

Contribution by GM

B6-a2 Second edition:

B6-a First edition

Title Page

The Yellow Book

An Illustrated Quarterly

Volume I April 1894

London: Elkin Mathews

& John Lane

Boston: Copeland &

Day

all on right side of page, with Aubrey Beardsley drawing of standing woman playing a pianoforte, with trees in background on left side of page

Launch

Published April 1894 at 5/-

Description

Height: 7 7/8 in; 7.88 in; 20 cm

Width: 6 1/4 in; 7.25 in; 18.42 cm

[A]8, B-P8, Q4, R8; pp 272 (with 14 inserted plates, each protected by a tissue guard sheet, 13 of which are counted in pagination), 18 (publisher’s announcements),

• followed by an inserted 16-page catalogue of additional publisher’s announcements;
• white endpapers;
• all edges untrimmed;
• bound in yellow cloth stamped in black,
• Beardsley drawing with list of “Letterpress” and “Pictures” on back cover,
• front cover divided into three boxes:

The Yellow Book

An Illustrated Quarterly

Volume I April 1894

in upper box

Beardsley drawing in center box

London: Elkin Mathews & John Lane

Boston; Copeland & Day

in left compartment of lower box

Price

5/-

Net

in small right compartment

• All three boxes within single-rule border,
• and spine stamped:

The

Yellow

Book

flower ornament

An

Illustrated

Quarterly

flower ornament

Vol. I

April 1894

flower ornament

5/-

Net

flower ornament

Elkin

Mathews

& John

Lane

Contribution by GM

“The Fool’s Hour, the First Act of a Comedy by John Oliver Hobbes and George Moore” pp [253]-272. Only the first act was published.

In writing later of the play and his collaboration with Mrs. Craigie, GM said, “The first act was published in The Yellow Book and much admired, and it would have been strange if it had not been, for it is as witty as anything she ever wrote. The second act was better still. It was the third act that decided her not to go on with the play.” Letter to Mrs. Craigie’s father, John Morgan Richards, in a letter dated December 4, 1909, and published by Richards in the second impression of The Life of John Oliver Hobbes (B12).

John Oliver Hobbes was the pen name of Mrs. Pearl Craigie, who appears as “Agate,” a character in “Lui et Elies” in three editions of Memoirs of My Dead Life (A29-d, A29-2d, and A29-3d). GM and Mrs. Craigie also collaborated on two other plays, “Journeys End in Lovers Meeting” (B11) and an early version of Elizabeth Cooper (A33-nl).

B6-a2 Second edition:

“The Fool’s Hour” is reprinted (pp [353]-372) in The Yellow Book: A Selection, compiled by Norman Denny, London and New York, 1950. Among the illustrations included at the end of the volume is a reproduction of Walter Sickert’s “Portrait of George Moore” originally included in Volume IV of The Yellow Book.