Item 14: The Works of Max Beerbohm (1896)

The London publisher John Lane is remembered for firing Aubrey Beardsley from The Yellow Book in the homophobic panic that surrounded Oscar Wilde’s prosecution in 1895 for “gross indecency”—not for his sense of fun. Nevertheless, Beerbohm brought out his silly side. He both created and published a bibliography for his collection of essays, titled The Works of Max Beerbohm—as though by an elderly writer decades into his career rather than a 24-year-old—but not before Scribner’s volume was issued in New York with its gorgeous, Art Nouveau cover by Margaret Armstrong. Her binding design incorporated butterflies, perhaps alluding to Beerbohm’s dedication to achieving beauty in his prose and in his dandified self-display.