734. Shakespeare in New York and Beyond (2)

Last week, I wrote about John Lane's advertisement in The International Studio. Of course, that magazine was not his only publicity channel. Steven Halliwell sent me scans of two other publications in which The Vale Shakespeare is mentioned.

John Lane's Bodley Head Bulletin, February 1900
[scan by Steven Halliwell]

John Lane's Bodley Head Bulletin for February 1900 is a eight-page leaflet (26 x 19,5 cm), published in New York. It contains two paragraphs on 'The Vale Press' and 'A New Edition of Shakespeare'. They urge readers to subscribe to the 36-volume set as soon as possible. The brochure then goes on to discuss a Bodley Head publication containing poems by Stephen Phillips, who was a popular poet and playwright at the time.

John Lane's Bodley Head Bulletin, February 1900
[scan by Steven Halliwell]

Another relevant leaflet was dated 15 March 1900, also published in New York: Spring Announcements. This four-page list (24 x 15 cm) briefly mentions The Vale Shakespeare.

John Lane's Spring Announcements, 15 March 1900
[scan provided by Steven Halliwell]

The list serves as an order form. 

These two publications were not typeset in Vale type and printed in London by the Ballantyne Press, but were produced in New York. There will have been other publications in which John Lane attempted to promote sales of The Vale Shakespeare.

[Thanks are due to Steven Halliwell for drawing attention to these leaflets and kindly providing scans.]

733. Shakespeare in New York and Beyond

One hundred copies of the Vale Press edition of the Plays of Shakespeare were set aside for the American market. They were sold by John Lane from his New York office at 251 Fifth Avenue. 

Each Play will be issued in a single demy 8vo volume, bound in cloth and stamped in blind from a design by Mr. Ricketts.

Two special lists were set in Vale Type by the Ballantyne Press in London and printed on Vale Press paper. They were shipped to America and distributed by John Lane. (These are now exceedingly rare. If you have a copy, please let me know.) 

But that was not all. He also had them photographed and published in the American counterpart to The Studio, which he published. The International Studio contained articles published by The Studio a month before (usually adding some American news). The March 1900 issue, for example, opened with the article that had appeared in London in February. Advertisements were included at the front and back of the issues.

The International Studio, March 1900 (cover)

The sections containing advertisements were entirely focused on the American market, with promotional material from, for example, The New York School of Art, Ida J. Burgess from Chicago, The London Art Publishers from Philadelphia, Foster Bothers in Boston, The National Correspondence School of Indianapolis and the Art Academy of Cincinnati. There were some London art adverts as well.

Four of the sixteen advertising pages in the March 1900 issue were used by John Lane to advertise the Vale Press and Vale Shakespeare.

The International Studio, March 1900 (page Ad VIII)

The first page—at the front of the issue—focused on the Shakespeare publication.

The International Studio, March 1900 (page Ad XIV: detail)

The three pages at the back emphasised that although copies of the previously published Vale Press editions were still available, stocks would soon be exhausted.

The International Studio, March 1900 (page Ad XVI: detail)

The fourth and last page of the original list was omitted here. It mentioned prices of the Pre-Vale editions and contained a list of editions that were sold out in both London and New York, but of which copies occasionally became available.

In this (for him) inexpensive way, John Lane effectively spread the message about the Vale Shakespeare throughout America.

732. The Garland

Several catalogues of Charles Shannon's lithographs have been published. Between 1889 and 1898, fifty-four lithographs were issued. In 1902, Charles Ricketts compiled the first catalogue, announcing that Shannon had given up lithography. 

But Shannon returned to the lithographic stone in 1904, printing another twenty-nine lithographs, abandoning the medium in 1909. In 1914 a second catalogue was published by Georges Derry (pseudonym of R.A. Walker) who described the lithographs that were made between 1904 and 1909. 

Again, Shannon took up lithography in 1917, and produced another thirteen lithographs. In 1920 Derry (Walker) produced a new catalogue covering most of the latter batch, and finally, in 1978, Paul Delaney published the definitive catalogue of Shannon's lithographs.

Some of these have smaller edition sizes than others, and consequently have been less reproduced in publications, auction catalogues, or in online presentations of museum collections. One rarely seen print is 'The Garland' from 1918.

A copy is in the collection of the Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam) and published on their website (find the print on Rijksmuseum.nl).

Charles Shannon, 'The Garland' (lithograph, 1918)

[Collection Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam: RP-P-1949-308]

There was an edition of 25 impressions in sanguine, or in grey-black, or in brown, 35,6 x 20,4 cm, initialled CS in the stone. The Rijksmuseum copy is in grey-black.

This lithograph was not listed by Derry. However, an earlier unpublished version from 1906 was described as follows:

Two nude women  are putting up a garland; one is standing on a stool and stretches up to hang the garland over the top of a door, and the other stands on the ground and supports her. A small child  on the right is holding a wreath and watching the others. 

A trial proof (one of only three copies) of the earlier version is in the collection of the British Museum. Twelve years passed between that first version and the second.

Charles Shannon, 'The Garland' (lithograph, trial proof, 1906)
[Collection The British Museum, London: 1913,0814.54]
[© The Trustees of the British Museum.
Shared under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence]

731. A Lady in a Striped Shirt (Helen Lawson)

Some time ago, I received a mail from Belgium about a hitherto unrecorded portrait by Charles Shannon depicting a lady in a striped shirt. It came from a collection in the city of Roeselaere. Last week it was sold at auction by Aubrey's Auctioneers; hammer price £8,000.

Charles Shannon, portrait of a lady in a striped shirt, 1915

The oil on canvas was not a small painting or sketch, measuring 75 x 61 cm, in a red and gilt frame. Signed and dated, it was finished in 1915.

Charles Shannon, portrait of a lady in a striped shirt, 1915

There is a label on the back with the name of James Bourlet & Sons., Ltd., a firm of fine art packers and framers.

The auctioneer's description reads:

A portrait painting depicting a young woman with androgynous charm, seated with her chin resting on her hand, her other hand holding pansies, gazing directly at the viewer with a soft introspective expression, she wears a coral and white striped blouse with voluminous sleeves, partially covered by a dark shawl, complimented by her cabochon coral and gold ring, she wears a black feathered toque style hat, her reflection in a circular mirror behind her, signed and dated 1915 to lower right, oil on canvas, 75 x 61 cm

(Jewellery, Art & Antiques. Guildford, Surrey: Aubrey’s Auctioneers, 31 July 2025, lot 139).

Note, 6 August 2025:

The painting has now been identified as being the portrait of ‘Miss Helen Lawson (Lady with a Coral Ring)’. As such, it was listed by 'Tis' [Herbert Furst] in Charles Shannon, A.R.A. An Essay. London, Colour Ltd., [1920]. (Masters of Modern Art), p. 7. At the time, the painting was owned by P.J. Ford. It had been exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1916. Frank Rutter mentioned it in The Sunday Times, 30 April 1916 (‘The Academy. A Portrait Year'): 'Mr. Charles Shannon shows several small square portraits of women's heads, admirable in placing and arrangement, fine in quality and harmonious, if rather low and sombre in colour. Their fanciful titles, "The Lady with a Coral Ring" (119), "The Lady in a Black Hat" (483), and "The Lady with the Amethyst" (524), suitably express the painter’s romantic and decorative intentions.' (Thanks are due to John Aplin for sending me some reviews of the exhibition.)