763. A Seated Figure by an Archway

Today, Lawrences of Bletchinley in Surrey continue an auction of Antiques and Collectables that started yesterday and will end tomorrow, selling 1725 items: carpets, enamel sings, fly rods, tools, guitars, stamps, terracotta plaques, stoneware, silver salvers, jewellery, but also oils, drawings, pastels, lithographs and other prints.

 

One of the lots contains a drawing by Charles Shannon. It is described as a pencil drawing, a study of a seated figure by an archway. The initials C.H.S. can be seen in the lower right hand corner, the format is 26 by 18 cm. 

C.H.S. [Charles Shannon?], 
Seated Figure by an Archway
(undated pencil drawing)

There seems to be no lithograph or painting that can be connected to this study. The three initials C.H.S. seem to indicate that this might be an early drawing.

At £10, the opening price seems reasonable.

762. A Fictional Cover for A Comedy of Masks (1893)

Late 1892, in an undated letter, the poet and prose writer Ernest Dowson (1867-1900) wrote to his former fellow student at Oxford, Charles Sayle (1864-1924), that the novel Dowson had written with another fellow student, Arthur Moore (1866-1952), had been accepted by publisher William Heinemann in London. The novel, started in 1890, would be published in three volumes in the autumn of 1893. 

Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore, A Comedy of Masks
London: William Heinemann, 1893
[Photo: Maggs Bros., London]

Dowson wrote to Sayle, who had by then begun a career as a librarian and bibliographer:

Heinemann has accepted our novel, but is vague about dates, which is tedious of him.

(New Letters from Ernest Dowson. Edited & with a Preface by Desmond Flower. Andoversford: The Whittington Press, 1984, p. 16. Here the letter is dated 'late November 1889'. However, almost all issues discussed point to 1892, for example: 'Alas! the 'Albemarle' is dead'. The Albemarle Review was published between January and September 1892.)

The proofs for the first edition started arriving in February 1893, and were still occupying the writers in August. In mid-September 1893, the book was finally announced in various newspapers and magazines, such as The Academy of 16 September 1893. The intention had been to publish the book on 15 September, but it came out on 22 September. Heinemann's advertisements after publication appeared on 28 September 1893, for example in The Morning Post: 'Mr. Heinemann's New Books', claiming that it was available 'At all Libraries', meaning Charles Edward Mudie's lending library.

By that time, Dowson wrote to Victor Plarr: 

The Comedy is out at last - very charming in its outward, visible aspect, and for the rest I hope no one will discover as many inward blemishes as I can.

(The Letters of Ernest Dowson. Collected & Edited by Desmond Flower and Henry Maas. London: Cassell & Company Ltd., 1967, p. 293)

A reprint in one volume was mentioned in The Bookseller on 4 August 1894.

Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore, A Comedy of Masks
London: William Heinemann, 1894 
[first one-volume edition]
[Photo: Maggs Bros., London]

The bindings of the first edition are stamped with an ornament combining a burning torch with a pair of masks, one for comedy and one for tragedy, the classic symbols of Thalia and Melpomene, representing the performing arts. The later, single-volume edition does not show a drama mask, but three comedy masks on a shield, the middle one representing an antique Greek mask.

But the book cover could have looked very different.

In early September 1893, Dowson received a sketch for the cover from Heinemann:

They have just sent us a suggested design for the cover - a tragic and comic mask with liberty to substitute what we like - within 5 days!! Of course in the time one can not do nothing: otherwise perhaps Horne or Ricketts might have been requisitioned.

(The Letters, p. 291)

Herbert Horne was a personal friend of Dowson. Ricketts met him twice when John Gray (or perhaps Laurence Binyon) brought Dowson to The Vale. Dowson was impressed by Silverpoints. Gray had sent him a dedication copy. Its cover by Ricketts was 'indescribably dainty', Dowson wrote (The Letters, p. 238).

If he had known that Ricketts sometimes worked very quickly, this book might have had a more attractive, even unforgettable appearance, although Ricketts himself might not have appreciated the novel.

761. Had Zimri Peace Who Slew His Master?

Harry Quilter (1851-1907), whose work was ridiculed by both James McNeill Whistler and Oscar Wilde, gave Shannon and Ricketts the opportunity to create drawings for his magazine The Universal Review. He would reproduce two of these drawings, both by Charles Shannon, in his art historical work Preferences in Art, Life and Literature (1892).

Preferences contained 67 illustrations. However, a deluxe large-paper edition also appeared. These numbered copies contain 114 illustrations, 56 of which were printed in autotype, mounted on additional sheets with the titles and names of the artists handwritten in ink. Among those additional illustrations are a drawing by Shannon and one by Ricketts, the latter titled 'Had Zimri Peace Who Slew His Master?'

Charles Ricketts, 'Had Zimri Peace Who Slew His Master?'
(The Universal Review, 15 August 1889)
[Photo: Jos Uljee]

The original illustration in The Universal Review measured 17.9 by 13.8 cm; the autotype reproduction was larger: 21.4 by 16.4 cm. Both the title and the name contained mistakes: Ricketts's name was given as 'H.S. Ricketts', the title was given as 'Jezebel', which was the title of the story that Ricketts and Shannon had illustrated.

Charles Ricketts, 'Had Zimri Peace Who Slew His Master?'
(published as 'Jezebel' in
Preferences in Art, Life and Literature (1892), facing page 232)

It is unclear whether Ricketts or Shannon ever laid eyes on that deluxe edition, but we do know that their friend, the poet Gordon Bottomley, was proud to have obtained a copy after years of searching. (Apparently, Bottomley had never managed to find a copy of the original reproduction in The Universal Review.)

He wrote in a letter that accompanied a copy of the book he sent as a Christmas present to Thomas Sturge Moore (13 December 1926):

We are far from Christmas yet, but I am sending your Christmas present with this as the post-office won't have it, and it too will probably take time on the railway – though I shall send it by passenger train.
It comes with a great deal of love from Emily and me to you and Marie. Of course my commercial soul is distressed by the foreknowledge that you will want to cut it up and take out the only things that are of value, for its price is going up steadily! But here it is for you to do as you like with; and we are happy in sending it, for we know you will rejoice in the superb reproduction of Ricketts’ “Jezebel” and the other treasures as much as we do.
It was really a great happiness when we found this copy some months ago, and we at once said we must have it for you.

[Quoted after the edition by John Aplin, Complete Correspondence of Gordon Bottomley and Thomas Sturge Moore. Volume 3: 1926-1948 (Letters 578-911) on the online platform Intelex, July 2020].

760. A Rare Prospectus for A House of Pomegranates

Jeremy Mason's Oscar Wilde collection, sold at Bonhams on 18 February, fetched both expected and unexpected high prices. Letters from Wilde, books from his own library and inscribed copies have been fetching record prices since his centenary in 2000, but other items, such as a photograph of Wilde on his deathbed, also fetched prices that exceeded expectations. At least, those of some of the underbidders.

Oscar Wilde, A House of Pomegranates (1891)
cover design by Charles Ricketts
Jeremy Mason's copy (photo: Bomhams)

One of the books that is not rare in itself is his 1891 collection of short stories, A House of Pomegranates, illustrated by Charles Ricketts and Charles Shannon. Copies of this book can be purchased at reasonable prices, ranging from £600 to £3,500. The Mason copy ultimately fetched £8,960.00 (including premium).

That is a considerable amount, especially since it is not a pristine copy, described as 'light spotting to a few pages, publisher's pictorial cloth gilt, lower cover unevenly stained and faded'.

However, hidden in plain sight, a special feature was mentioned: '4pp. pictorial prospectus loosely inserted'. This captured the imagination, because although 250 copies of the prospectus were printed, it is now extremely rare.

759. Apollo and Marsyas

In a musical contest between Apollo and Marsyas, it was the latter who lost and was subsequently flayed alive by Apollo. Such mythological stories have often been depicted by artists, and this story is usually, but not always, illustrated with the scene in which Marsyas is tortured, as in a drawing by Luca Giordano.

Luca Giordano (attributed to) 
'Apollo slaying Marsyas'
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Felton Bequest, 1923

For their illustrations, Ricketts and Shannon choose another moment, Apollo and Marsyas playing their instruments. Shannon made two different drawings that were pasted into an album (now at the British Museum). They look like magazine illustrations, possibly head- or tailpieces, and must have been done early in his career.

Charles Shannon, 'Apollo, Marsyas' (undated drawing)
[British Museum: 1946,0209.50]
[© The Trustees of the British Museum.
Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence]

The first pen drawing (5.7 x 16.o cm) is described as follows: 'Apollo and Marsyas; a faun on right playing pipes, a seated male figure on left holding a harp, surrounded by decorative foliage'. The second one (6.0 x 16.4 cm) depicts 'a faun on right playing pipes, a seated male figure on left holding a violin, surrounded by decorative foliage'. The names 'Apollo' and 'Marsyas' are part of the drawing.

Charles Shannon, 'Apollo, Marsyas' (undated drawing)
[British Museum: 1946,0209.51]
[© The Trustees of the British Museum.
Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence]

Ricketts, like Shannon, depicted the musicians (not the winner and loser). The image came up for auction in the John Russell Taylor sale at Olympia Auctions on 11 February. 

Charles Ricketts, 'Apollo and Marsyas' (undated)

It was described as: 'signed, titled and dedicated Apollo and Marsyas / Charles Ricketts / A Madame Mascabesi upper left; signed Charles Ricketts lower centre on the edge of the mount; lithograph with watercolour additions; 28 x 20 cm'.

The dedication is consistent with the subject of the image, music. The name 'Mascabesi' is wrong, the musical friend who was given this sheet was Blanche Marchesi (1863-1940), a mezzo-soprano. From 1905 onwards, Ricketts went to her recitals and met her several times; one of his letters to her has survived (to be published in the forthcoming edition of the complete letters). Though described as a lithograph, this is obviously a watercolour or an original drawing, heightened in watercolour. Ricketts's monogram 'CR' is in the lower right hand corner. The name underneath the image is probably not from his hand, but the dedication at the top certainly is.

758. The Friendly Distance between Some Vale Artists

Only a handful of authors and artists created the contributions for the first issue of the magazine The Dial, issued by Shannon and Ricketts in 1889: Charles Ricketts, Charles Shannon, John Gray and Reginald Savage. Gray's contribution consisted of an essay and a story.

Although Thomas Sturge Moore had already met Shannon in 1885 and Ricketts two years later, he had not yet joined the Dial circle of writers and artists. He would not make his debut as a poet and essayist until 1892, in the second number of The Dial, when he immediately provided a striking number of contributions: one essay, nine poems (including a translation) and a story. The issue also contained three poems (including a translation) by Gray and introduced Lucien Pissarro and Herbert Horne as contributors.

Charles Shannon, Portrait of John Gray, lithograph (1896)
[British Library: museum number: 1896,1028.25]
[© The Trustees of the British Museum]
[Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence]

However, the Vale coterie was not a closed circle of collaborators, consisting mainly of the core members, Ricketts and Shannon, surrounded by the others in varying formations. Based on their biographies and correspondence, we must conclude that Sturge Moore and Gray played almost no role in each other's lives.

This is confirmed by a late letter from Sturge Moore to Gordon Bottomley. On 20 November 1934, he wrote:

I hardly knew John Gray. I met him once at Christies just after the first Dial with poems by me came out and he was very flattering to me who felt very shabby by such a smart young man. And once I think he called for something at Holland Park but hardly stayed at all and then on my Scotch tour for a few minutes after his evening mass in his vicarage. We corresponded also very rarely.

The first meeting may have taken place shortly after February 1892 and the second one at the house of Ricketts and Shannon in Holland park (between 1902 and 1923). The last encounter must have been during Moore's tour of Scotland in March 1926, lecturing on the invitation of the  Scottish Verse-Speaking Association.

Perhaps the cause of the distance between the two lay more with Gray than with Moore – even Ricketts wrote to publisher John Lane in the early 1890s that he saw Gray 'only very occasionally'.

757. Fan-Shaped Shannon Works Collected by John Russell Taylor

The critic John Russell Taylor - whose groundbreaking study, The Art Nouveau Book in Britain (1966) contains an important chapter on Ricketts - died, aged ninety, in October last year, and his collection of prints, paintings and art books will come up for auction this month.

The collection (part of it) is shown on the website of Olympia Auctions as 'The Estate of John Russell Taylor: Author, Critic, Collector'. [See the website of Olympia Auctions.] It contains no less than three fan-shaped paintings and a lithograph by Charles Shannon. The fan-shape appealed to Shannon, an oil painting in this form, 'Girl Bathers in a Boat’, is in the collection of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham (Cecil French Bequest, 1954).

Charles Shannon, 'The Snow - Winter' (1907): lithograph

The lithograph is listed as number 73 in Paul Delaney's The Lithographs of Charles Shannon 1863-1937 (1978) - it is called 'The Snow - Winter' and dates from 1907. It is one of seven fan-shaped lithographs by Shannon. 

There are also two fan-shaped paintings on silk depicting two female nudes (lot 224) and a nude woman, a small child and another woman (lot 226), as well as a watercolour on paper showing a group of four people bending over, lying down or sitting down with a young child at the centre (lot 225).

Charles Shannon, 'First Steps' (undated), watercolour.

The watercolour was sold in the 1939 auction following the death of Shannon in 1937: Catalogue of Fine Paintings by Old Masters and Modern Drawings. London, Sotheby's, 14 June 1939, p. 6, no. 31. The description identifies it as 'Fan Design : "First Steps"[,] Water-colour'. 

Charles Shannon, a naked woman, a child and a second woman,
fan-shaped painting on silk (undated)

The other two paintings on silk are not easily identified. Lot 226 shows a naked woman kneeling down, drying herself, handing a towel to a naked young child who is being encouraged by a second woman sitting down. The setting is a beach (unlike the garden in a woodcut called 'Hot August' which has a somewhat similar image). 

Charles Shannon, two naked women at the beach,
fan-shaped painting on silk (undated)

The other silk painting (lot 224) depicts two naked women, also at the beach; the background has obviously darkened, like in many Shannon paintings.

Many of these studies by Shannon are undocumented; it is pleasing to have these images.

John Russell Taylor also possessed fan-shaped works by the artists Alan Odle and George Sheringham.

756. A Trial Binding for The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891) [More Thoughts]

Last week's blog about a supposed trial copy of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray lingered in my mind, as if there was still a loose thread (and there always is). Simon Wilson wrote to me with his thoughts on the matter, and in light of that, it might be good to explore the matter a little further. Of course, we find ourselves in the dangerous field of tempting assumptions and speculations.

The point is that the bookbinding and the decorations on the front cover may not always have formed a whole. Simon Wilson was puzzled by 'the very worn grey board with the title and decorations'.

Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891): 'trial binding'
[Photo: Bonhams]

We know that the vellum parts and the lettering on the spine were applied by Morley in Oxford, and that company was not involved in the production of the first edition of the book. They only became involved later.

Wilson continued:

Could this in fact be a remaining fragment of an original cover, that the binder incorporated? 

If the original board had been completely lost, then why the three-quarter binding? If the binder were recreating the lettering and decoration of the upper board then why not give it whole, with just a vellum spine? It would have looked much more like the original book. 

If a print of a trial design existed, that piece of paper could have been used for the binding, but then it remains curious that no attempt was done to follow the final design.

I find it hard to imagine a binder going to all the trouble and expense of redrawing the cover design and making a fresh block in the first place, and especially not just for a partial cover. 

Sometimes such proofs are indeed preserved, but this would mean that Ricketts had already submitted a sketch, that a block was made from it, and that he then rejected the result. Given his previously non-existent relationship with the publisher, this would have been difficult for him to do, and it is something he never actually did.

He was aware that a designer should not incur unnecessary costs for the publisher. He had learned this in his first year of training. This is one of the main reasons why I cannot accept that he is the creator of this curious design. The lettering is far too hesitant and even clumsy for him, whereas he had for years skilfully calligraphed texts for magazine commissions. I find the lettering typical of an imitator. But, of course, I may be wrong.

Why someone would go to the trouble of asking a bookbinder to follow the design in this way is something we may never find out.

Simon Wilson and I will have to agree to disagree, I suppose, and therefore I will quote his other comments as well, so that you may be the judge.

If it were the work of an imitator as you suggest, then what was their model? And if that model were a copy of the book as issued, then why completely change the design of the decorative devices? And from where would they get the idea of those complex constructions of dotted lines? 

The book was not that rare at the time, it could be seen in a library or antiquarian bookshop. A hasty sketch would do the trick. 

Simon Wilson also added:

Dorian was Ricketts's first published book design for Wilde so it would be unsurprising for him to take extra trouble over it.

This copy is an oddity. Perhaps it will be acquired by a collector who believes that it contains an original design by Ricketts? And, perhaps, it does.

755. A Trial Binding for The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891)

In February 2021, Bonhams in London hosted an exhibition of books from the collection of Jeremy Mason, marking the 120th anniversary of the death of Oscar Wilde. Five years later, the collection of manuscripts, letters, first editions, association copies and ephemera will be auctioned by this firm. The catalogue is online. After sixty years of collecting, Mason, who is a former dealer in Oriental antiques, has decided to sell his trophies: 156 lots will find a new home. [Bonhams' shows all the items on their website: Oscar Wilde. The Collection of Jeremy Mason.] 

The auction includes many items that are connected to the work of Charles Ricketts and/or Charles Shannon, one of these lots containing as many as 29 books.

One outstanding and amazing item is lot 49, a copy of the first edition of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891) for which Ricketts designed the cover, the title-page and the preface. This copy, however, annotated by Wilde's bibliographer C.S. Millard ('Stuart Mason'), has a different cover, described as 'FIRST EDITION IN BOOK FORM, IN A TRIAL BINDING', and as: 'publisher's half vellum over grey bevelled boards, upper cover with gilt design by Ricketts incorporating title and inverted pyramid of "butterflies", t.e.g., upper hinge restored, worn'. [See Bonhams website for the complete description. This copy also featured in the exhibition catalogue of 2021 (page 30, number 33).] 

The identification as 'trial copy' dates back to 1928, when Dulau & Company offered the book in catalogue 161, Oscar Wilde, featuring works from the collections of Robert Ross, C.S. Millard, and Vyvyan Holland: 'Evidently an early trial copy.' However, this information was not endorsed or confirmed by the bibliographer himself!

Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891): 'trial binding'
[Photo: Bonhams]

The original binding has proven to be fragile, and more than 130 years later, many copies have been restored or rebound. 

Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891): detail of 'trial binding'
[Photo: Bonhams]

Ricketts designed various decorations for the regular and large paper editions, both for the spine and the front cover, while the spine decoration was also printed on the back cover of the deluxe edition.

In this case, we can only compare the title and decoration on the front cover with the final edition – the title on the spine of the Mason copy was clearly not designed by Ricketts. This alone is reason enough to take a close look at the binding: a book bound in half vellum with vellum corners does not confirm that we are dealing with a Ricketts binding.

Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891): detail of front cover

Evidently an early trial copy? I am not so sure. It is striking that none of the details of the decoration or lettering correspond to the later design, which would mean that Ricketts came up with a completely different drawing during the design process. If so, he apparently decided to replace the dotted circles and stars in the title with others, redrawing all the letters and deciding not to let the tail of the “R” flow into the “Y”, because in the final design there is a small gap between that tail and the letter “Y”, whose tail points in the opposite direction. The characters in the “trial” are remarkably elongated compared to the later ones. The ten decorations below the title (in an inverted pyramid shape) also differ significantly from what Ricketts designed for the definitive binding.

This object does not display the hesitant efforts of an artist striving for the best result, searching for a better design or revising his earlier thoughts. On the contrary, it shows the amateurism and sloppiness of an imitator. This is the work of a later bookbinder trying to imitate the design. There is nothing to suggest that this copy is a trial binding based on a design by Ricketts himself. It is an imitation made when the book was rebound because the original binding had failed. This happened very often; the simplest restoration involved a new spine, while the front cover was retained. This is the case, for example, with the rebacked copy in the University of Pennsylvania Libraries, using similar and different floral designs (Annenberg Rare Book and Manuscript Library: PR 5819 A1 1891). 

Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891): spine (detail)
Copy in the University of Pennsylvania Libraries,
Assenberg Rare Book and Manuscript Library (PR 5819 A1 1891)

In my opinion, this is not a 'trial copy' – Ricketts was keen to have proofs and sketches destroyed. 

Nevertheless, this Mason & Mason copy (Stuart & Jeremy) remains an important item because of the annotations made by C.S. Millard, who used it to compare the text with that in the first edition in magazine form.

Note

After publishing this blog today, I received a response from Lorenza Gay, associate specialist at Bonhams, stating that they had examined the book again and discovered a bookbinder's ticket. The description now includes this Saleroom Notice: 

Identified as a 'trial binding' by Dulau in 1928, but bears bookbinder's stamp of 'Morley. Oxford' on turn-in inside upper cover. Therefore probably an imitation of the publisher's binding.

754. Charles Shannon's Idylls of Rural Life

In addition to paintings, lithographs and a few etchings, Charles Shannon produced a series of twelve chiaroscuro woodcuts, which are sometimes believed to have been completed around 1898 when they were exhibited in E.J. van Wisselingh's Dutch Gallery in December 1898. However, the catalogue for that exhibition only mentions six, and the assumption that the other six were also exhibited at that time is incorrect.

The catalogue of The First Exhibition of Original Wood Engraving (printed in Vale type) was probably 'set up and printed in 24 hours' as Charles Ricketts stated about the ephemeral publications that he designed as an aside to the Vale Press issues (A Bibliography of the Books issued by Hacon & Ricketts, 1904, p. xxxi). If there were twelve of these new works on display instead of six, this would certainly have been mentioned.

Charles Shannon, 'Pegasus' (woodcut, 1898)
[British Museum 1905,0826.6]
[Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license]

The catalogue listed six of these colour woodcuts by Shannon:

Pegasus
Coral Snatchers
Fruit Pickers
December
The Oven

Dead Leaves

A review by D.S. MacColl (The Saturday Review, 10 December 1898) singled them out for praise, calling them the 'surprise of the exhibition' and although MacColl mentioned the 'series of roundels', stating that the 'daintiness with which these pieces [...] are mounted and framed adds to their grace', he did not quote any of their titles, nor mentioned the number of woodcuts included.

Another review, ‘The World of Art’, had appeared in The Glasgow Herald on 5 December 1898 and in this article three titles were mentioned (all listed in the catalogue): 'the beautiful cameo-like series of oval cuts printed in two colours on tinted paper – "Pegasus," "The Coral Snatchers," "The Oven," &c.'

A year later, in December 1899, the Catalogue of the Sixth Exhibition of the Arts & Crafts Exhibition Society also listed a couple of the Shannon woodcuts: 'Coral Snatchers', 'The Oven', 'Pegasus', 'Fruit Pickers', 'December' and 'Dead Leaves', exactly the same as had been shown the year before. None of the other six woodcut was mentioned or shown. 

This is not a coincidence, it simply points to the fact that the other six woodcuts did not yet exist.

On 3 December 1898 the poets and playwrights Katharine Bradley and Edith Cooper (who wrote under the name Michael Field) went to visit the exhibition. They too saw the series of roundel woodcuts and mentioned some titles: in their diary entry: 

The Coral-snatchers bring up their branches from the tragic darkness from wh: all labour must deliver wealth [...] Michael buys Shannon's Pegasus for me. 

At first glance, it may be difficult to determine when the second series was created, although we are not entirely in the dark. Firstly, there is a catalogue from 1903, when John Baillie exhibited work by Ricketts, Shannon and Mrs L. Murray Robertson in his gallery at One Princes Terrace. Listed are eight of the twelve woodcuts:

Dead Leaves
The Oven

Fruit Pickers

The Garden Plot

Coral Divers

The Porch

December 

Pegasus

This catalogue introduced two new works: ‘The Garden Plot’ and ‘The Porch’. 

Charles Shannon, 'The Porch' (woodcut, 1901)
[British Museum 1905,0826.6]
[Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license]

Probably, these had been executed two years earlier, according to a diary note by Michael Field, who, at the time, were very close to Ricketts and Shannon. On 8 November 1901 they wrote about a dinner at their home attended by Ricketts and Shannon:

During the afternoon Shannon's six latest woodcuts had arrived from the framer's & were laid in the embrowning sunset. Now Shannon puts them as they are to be hung. Then we sit in the Whiter Room – the Artists on the little settee as close as they hang their pictures – we in full range, with our 'gemmy' creatures flashing on our silks

Here we clearly read that the second half of the series was completed at the end of 1901, although no titles are mentioned. This claim was later endorsed by Ricketts when, in 1913, he wrote to E.F. Strang, Keeper of the Department of Engraving, Illustration and Design of the Victoria & Albert Museum about their work.

I think you should mention in the case of our prints that Daphnis & Chloe was published 20 years ago. The print of the feast contains the portraits of the wood engravers Ricketts, Shannon, T. S. Moore, Pissar[r]o & Savage in fact all the original wood cutters of the time I think. Shannons Chiaroscuro prints were done in two batches the first set 18 years ago the second book about 15 or 14 years ago. I thought of this on seeing two of Shannon's old lithos at Kensington dating back 20 & 15 years near prints done a few months ago. How time flies!

The twelve woodcuts were therefore designed and executed in two parts and framed according to Shannon's own wishes. Without a doubt, the second series can be dated to 1901. 

753. A Double Portrait as Cover Illustration

While clearing out last year's clippings, notes and emails, I came across a review of the novel Pijpelijntjes by Dutch author Jacob Israël de Haan. The story about the daily lives of two young gay men in the Amsterdam neighbourhood of De Pijp (hence the title Pijpelijntjes, lines or sketches of the neighbourhood) caused a scandal in 1904. 

The review by Joost Ingen-Housz appeared in the weekly magazine De Groene Amsterdammer in a series of reviews of books set in Amsterdam, celebrating the city's 750th anniversary last year. The cover of a recent edition of the book was printed alongside it, and when I looked closely at the small picture, I recognised the heads of Ricketts and Shannon.

De Groene Amsterdammer, 14 august 2025

The double portrait is the renowned painting by Jacques-Émile Blanche, which is housed in the Tate in London.

Jacques-Émile Blanche, double portrait of
Charles Ricketts and Charles Shannon (1904)
[The Tate, London]

Ricketts and Shannon sat for Blanche in Shannon's studio at Lansdowne House in July 1904. It is this portrait that was cut and reproduced rather darkly on the cover of Pijpelijntjes. 

There is not much logic behind the use of this image. The subjects never met the Dutch author. The painting happens to date from the same year that De Haan published his novel, but the two protagonists' lodgings in De Pijp are worlds apart from the circumstances in which Ricketts and Shannon were living at the time: their spacious flat with two private studios was described as a palace full of art treasures. Although they were a couple as collectors and artists, by the time they were portrayed, Shannon was increasingly manifesting himself as a lover of women.

Cover of Jacob Israël de Haan, Pijpelijntjes (Diderot, 2023)

In the book, the Rotterdam-based publisher Diderot has not included any explanation for this choice. In fact, the names of the painter and the sitters are missing, as is any acknowledgement of the text used, which has simply been taken from digitised versions of the novel.

Personally, I have a deep aversion to these kinds of easy-to-make books, with their uncaring design (meaning: no designer was involved), under the guise of 'saving masterpieces' (which De Haan's novel undoubtedly is), even though these novels don't need saving now that they are available digitally without restriction, at least where I live, and for as long as it lasts.

752. A New Year's Letter about Books

At the beginning of 1928, Charles Ricketts wrote a note to Sydney Cockerell to thank him for bringing home a quotation. He then began to list the books he was reading or had read from a series published by Kegan Paul:

Do you keep in touch with the To-day and To-morrow series Kegan Paul. I find them most cheering & entertaining, some of them. Daedalus, Icarus, Tantalus Cassandra are remarkable. Platos American Republic & Narcissus most amusing. Even cranks like old Vernon Lee and Sylvia Pankhurst come out well. I have been greatly entertained by Haldane’s End of the World in his last book Possible Worlds.
[Letter to Sydney Cockerell, 3 January 1928: BL Add MS 52746, f 152]

J.B.S. Haldane, Daedalus or Science and the Future. 
A Paper Read to the Heretics, Cambridge on February 4th, 1923.
London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd., 1923

The To-Day and To-Morrow Series was a popular series of books that speculated on various topics about what the future would look like. Scientific research and social developments were extrapolated, suggesting, for example, that the world and humanity would be transformed by radio or space travel.

Ricketts referred to several volumes:

J.B.S. Haldane, Daedalus or Science and the Future. A Paper Read to the Heretics, Cambridge on February 4th, 1923. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd., 1923;

Bertrand Russell, Icarus or The Future of Science. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd., 1924;

F.C.S. Schiller, Tantalus or the Future of Man. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd., 1924;

F.C.S. Schiller, Cassandra or The Future of the British Empire. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd.; New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1926;

Douglas Woodruff, Plato’s American Republic. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd., 1927;

Gerald Heard, Narcissus. An Anatomy of Clothes. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd.; New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1924;

Vernon Lee, Proteus or The Future of Intelligence. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co.; New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1925;

E. Sylvia Pankhurst, Delphos. The Future of International Language. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd.; New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., [1927];

J.B.S. Haldane, Possible Worlds, and Other Essays. London: Chatto and Windus, 1927.

Ricketts was not the only enthusiastic reader; James Joyce also read the volumes. He borrowed them from Sylvia Beach's bookshop/lending library, Shakespeare & Co, and used them to find words for Finnegans Wake (see the article by Robbert-Jan Henkes and Mikio Fuse on Genetic Joyce Studies).

751. A Post-War Christmas

Towards the end of the year, it seems, Charles Ricketts often looked back on the months behind him with disappointment and disapproval. When he wrote down his thoughts, which he did not always do (like many diary writers, of course), they tended to be negative rather than positive. When you are dissatisfied or depressed, you really have something to write about. 

On the first Christmas Day after the end of the First World War, he wrote a letter to his long-standing Dutch friend, Richard Roland Holst, in which he recalled wartime habits and discussed remaining restrictions.

Your letter dated 13th arrived many days later; it has been on my table unanswered for countless good and bad reasons. Yes, the end came suddenly as a Japanese told me it would early in the war, yet the surprise was not what I should have imagined, nor even the sense of relief, the latter sensation has grown daily till, to-day Xmas, I am aware that something has been lifted from my life, yet, even now, old war habits continue – I pull down blinds, save bread; feel astonished at the return of old luxuries, – these by the way are few since the shortage of certain things is still a fact; paper for instance is rare, frames impossible, and probably for a long while artificial reasons will stop a return to normal things, let alone the danger of the Russian threat.

The signal of the Armistice found us without flags and, for several hours, our balcony was decorated with a banner I had painted for Jeanne d’Arc, in a stupid propaganda play, which happened to be in the cellars.

There was a prospect of change, thanks to Edmund Davis, who had offered them a second home outside London as a token of appreciation for their art advice. In the end, they would not be decorating a cottage, but a centuries-old tower, The Keep at Chilham Castle.

Chilham Castle Keep in 2021
[Photo © Phillip Halling, from: Geography.org.uk
Creative Commons Attribution Share-alike license 2.0]

A friend has promised us a small cottage in a lovely English village, Chilham near Canterbury. The spring may see us there, but it may take longer and, I fear the next year will see changes and troubles. Evil will not pass so readily. I hope next Xmas all this will seem like a pre-existence.

This war has proved the power of unknown forces of endurance and renewal, and these, for the moment, have prevailed. The sense of security is not as yet a habit, even now I sometimes think I hear the sound of guns, of possible distant raids, as I did a few months ago.

(Letter dated 25 December 1918. Typed transcription, BL Add MS 61718, ff 200–2).

In these times, we hear those sounds, not yet in Western European regions, but close enough to be alarming. Where some wars come to an end and others persist, there is no prospect of a world in which atrocities and border violations are not committed – although a young perspective on the world may offer the necessary, more encouraging outlook. Tyrants are never truly young, neither in their hearts nor in reality. Tyrants never represent the future.

750. After Wilde

Merlin Holland's new book about his grandfather's legacy, After Oscar. The Legacy of a Scandal (Europa Editions) does contain one reference to Charles Ricketts (and none to Charles Shannon). His name features on page 211 and is not related to his designs for Wilde's works. It is mentioned in passing, introducing a letter from Robert Ross to Ricketts.

Merlin Holland, After Oscar (2025)

The letter was an answer to Ricketts's letter of 6 June about the libel case brought by Jack Grein and Maud Allan against Pemberton Billing which they lost. Ross wrote that his letter had 'touched & soothed' him:

I foresaw the result of the Billing case, & warned Grein not to bring the action. When the trial began everyone thought I was mad because I said Billing would be acquitted [….] Officials in the Treasury told me kindly but firmly that the subject was on my brain. Now they are absurdly astonished at the obvious. Billing & Douglas are the centre of a powerful & richly backed caucus of all the disgruntled people in England.

(Ross to Ricketts, 13 June 1918: BL Add MS 58091, f 152).

Ricketts's letter will be published next year in The Collected Letters of Charles Ricketts, edited by John Aplin and myself, and published in three volumes by Brill (see the Brill website).

749. A Fan by Charles Shannon

The Canadian auction house Waddington's in Toronto will soon be selling an item by Charles Shannon that is described in the catalogue as a red chalk drawing on buff paper: 'Classical study', 18,5 x 40 cm, with initials 'C.H.S.' in the lower right hand corner. [See Waddington's website.]

Charles Shannon, 'The Toilet' (lithograph, 1906)

The initials appear in the lower right hand corner of the fan-shaped image.

Initials in Charles Shannon, 'The Toilet' (lithograph, 1906)

However, this is not an original chalk drawing, but a lithograph, signed in the stone. Its title is 'The Toilet' and the edition is very small: only nine proofs were made in sanguine or black. For his 1978 catalogue of lithographs Paul Delaney traced three copies: in the British Museum, the Fitzwilliam Museum and the Boston Public Library. It was one of three fan-shaped lithographs that Shannon designed in 1906.

In 1920, George Derry (alias of R.A. Walker) gave a description of the image:

On the left of the fan a woman crouches combing her hair with her left hand, while the line of her right is also raised and follows the outside curve of the fan. A small child is kneeling on the floor and on the extreme right is a pitcher of water. 

The auction date is 11 December 2025, the estimate is $400-600 CAD.

[The lithograph sold at 200 CAD.]

748. Salome's Bookshelf Published

On 31 October I received my copies of Salome's Bookshelf. Artists and Writers of the 1890s, edited by Simon Alexander Reynolds, a Shakespeare scholar. The book contains nine essays on Fernand Khnopff, Arthur Symons, Max Beerbohm, John Davidson, Charles Conder, Charles Ricketts, Walt Ruding, Oscar Wilde and Ernest Dowson, and is published by Greenwich Exchange (copies may be ordered at the publisher's website). 

Salome's Bookshelf, cover (2025)

The articles establish connections between literature, music and visual art. My article on Ricketts ('Charles Ricketts  and Harmony Between Image and Text') discusses the way in which Ricketts combined (sometimes his own) texts and images at the beginning and end of his career, for example in the magazine The Dial, in Oscar Wilde's The Sphinx and in his later works, such as Beyond the Threshold.

Of the other essays, which introduce new perspectives, I was particularly struck by the article on Charles Conder by Samuel Shaw, who previously wrote about William Rothenstein and Edwardian culture in general.

The photographs for my essay were taken by Jos Uljee (The Hague). Below is a photograph of In the Key of Blue and Other Prose Essays, a different version of which is included in the book.

John Addington Symonds, In the Key of Blue and Other Prose Essays,
cover design by Charles Ricketts (1893) [Photo: Jos Uljee]

747. Dedication copies of An Ideal Husband (1899): Addenda

Blog 743 (29 October) contained a list of presentation copies of An Ideal Husband. It was incomplete, as could be expected: Oscar Wilde had written his publisher that he wanted around thirty presentation copies to be sent out in July 1899 (see Complete Letters, 2000, p. 1158-9). As follows: 

[large paper (100 copies):]
Robert Ross, Reginald Turner, Lord Alfred Douglas, More Adey, Charles Shannon

[regular edition (1000 copies):]

Louis Wilkinson, Kyle Bellew, H.H. Morell (Henry Harvey Morell Mackenzie), Lewis Waller, Herbert Edward Osman Edwards, Vincent O'Sullivan, Ernest Dowson, Félix Fénéon, Ernest La Jeunesse, Langrel Harris, Henri Bauër, Digby Lamotte, Frances Forbes-Robertson, Arthur L. Humphreys, Stuart Merrill, André Gide, Ferdinand Hérold, Wilfred Scawen Blunt, Major J.O. Nelson, Henry-David Davray.

Oscar Wilde, dedication to André Gide in An Ideal Husband (1899)

Wilde wrote to Frank Harris (not listed above) that he would receive a large paper copy and a deluxe copy (one of 12 on Japanese paper), but, as they were not ready yet, he asked the publisher to send him an ordinary copy as well.

Mark Samuels Lasner wrote to me that he had also once started a list of this play's dedication copies and sent me some additions, some of which I have not yet been able to ascertain in the catalogues of libraries and museums. However, these two can be added to the list:

More dedication copies of An Ideal Husband (1899)

A. More Adey (1858-1942), British art critic and editor.  

'To | my dear and | good friend | More Adey : cor cordium : | speculum amicitiae : | Oscar Wilde.' 

[British Library, London: Eccles 109:  No. 100/100 copies].

B. Robert Ross (1869-1918), Canadian author, art dealer and editor, Wilde's literary executor.

'To Robert Ross: | the perfect friend : | in deep | affection | from the | author. | Oscar Wilde'

[British Library, London: Eccles 108: No. 92/100 copies].