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 calligraphied 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.