Volpone: or the Fox.: A new edition with a critical essay on the author by Vincent O'Sullivan and a frontispiece, five initial letters and a cover design illustrative and decorative by Aubrey Beardsley, together with an [sic] eulogy of the artist by Robert Ross.

London: Leonard Smithers & Co,, 1898. Featuring some of Beardsley's last completed illustrations First Beardsley edition, deluxe issue, number 79 of 100 copies printed on japon paper, specially bound in full vellum, and featuring an extra suite of five plates with larger versions of Beardsley's vignettes. In November 1897, Beardsley was commissioned to produce 24 illustrations for this edition of Jonson's Volpone, including a frontispiece, decorative initials, and a front cover design. In the event, he could only complete the cover design, the frontispiece, and six vignettes before his death on 16 March 1898. This was, however, a project that Beardsley was passionate about, writing "I am making pictures of Ben Jonson's adorable and astonishing Volpone" and "I carry Volpone about with me from dawn to dawn and dream of nothing else". He considered his illustration for the frontispiece ("Volpone Adoring His Treasure") as "one of the strongest things I have ever done" (cited in Nelson, p. 163). Large quarto. Original vellum over bevelled boards, spine lettered and ruled in gilt, front cover with overall design by Beardsley incorporating title, rear cover with centred publisher's device blocked in gilt, top edge gilt, others untrimmed. Printed cover design, frontispiece and 6 vignettes by Beardsley, 5 of the vignettes reproduced in large size in photogravure, title printed in red and black. Light soiling to vellum, very light bumping and rubbing to extremities, slight toning to endpapers: a very good copy. Lasner 129; Ray, pp. 196-7. James G. Nelson, Publisher to the Decadents, 2000.