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]