After some considerable experience in the field of bibliography I cannot
plead as palliation for any imperfections that may be discovered in
this, that it is the work of a 'prentice hand. Difficult as I found my
self-imposed task in the case of the Meredith and Hardy bibliographies,
here my labour has been still more herculean.
It is impossible for one to compile a bibliography of a great man's
works without making it in some sense a biography--and indeed, in the
minds of not a few people, I have found a delusion that the one is
identical with the other.
Mr. Beerbohm, as will be seen from the page headed Personalia, was
born in London, August 24, 1872. In searching the files of the Times I
naturally looked for other remarkable occurrences on that date. There
was only one worth recording. On the day upon which Mr. Beerbohm
was born, there appeared in the first column of the Times, this
announcement:
'On [Wednesday], the 21st August, at Brighton, the wife of V.P.
Beardsley, Esq., of a son.'
That the same week should have seen the advent in this world of two such
notable reformers as Aubrey Beardsley and Max Beerbohm is a coincidence
to which no antiquary has previously drawn attention. Is it possible to
over-estimate the influence of these two men in the art and literature
of the century?
Like two other great essayists, Addison and Steele, Mr. Beerbohm was
educated at Charterhouse, and, like the latter, at Merton College,
Oxford. At Charterhouse he is still remembered for his Latin verses,
and for the superb gallery of portraits of the masters that he completed
during his five years' sojourn there. There are still extant a few
copies of his satire, in Latin elegiacs, called Beccerius, privately
printed at the suggestion of Mr. A. H. Tod, his form-master. The writer
has said 'Let it lie,' however, and in such a matter the author's wish
should surely be regarded. I have myself been unable to obtain a sight
of a copy, but a more fortunate friend has furnished me with a careful
description of the opusculum, which I print in its place in the
bibliography.
He matriculated at Merton in 1890, and immediately applied himself to
the task he had set before him, namely, a gallery of portraits of the
Dons.
I am aware that he contributed to The Clown and other undergraduate
journals: also that he was a member of the Myrmidons' Club. It was
during his residence at Oxford that his famous treatise on Cosmetics
appeared in the pages of an important London Quarterly, sets of which
are still occasionally to be found in booksellers' catalogues at a high
price, though the American millionaire collector has made it one of the
rarest of finds. These were the days of his youth, the golden age of
'decadence.' For is not decadence merely a fin de siècle literary term
synonymous with the 'sowing his wild oats' of our grandfathers? a phrase
still surviving in agricultural districts, according to Mr. Andrew Lang,
Mr. Edward Clodd, and other Folk-Lorists.
Mr. Beerbohm, of course, was not the only writer of his period who
appeared as the champion of artifice. A contemporary, one Richard Le
Gallienne, an eminent Pose Fancier, has committed himself somewhere to
the statement that 'The bravest men that ever trod this planet have worn
corsets.'
But what is so far away as yester-year? In 1894, Mr. Beerbohm, in virtue
of his 'Defence of Cosmetics,' was but a pamphleteer. In 1895 he was
the famous historian, for in that year appeared the two earliest of his
profound historical studies, The History of the Year 1880, and his work
on King George the Fourth. During the growth of these masterpieces, his
was a familiar figure in the British Museum and the Record Office, and
tradition asserts that the enlargement of the latter building, which
took place some time shortly afterwards, was mainly owing to his
exertions.
Attended by his half-brother, Mr. Tree, Mrs. Tree and a numerous
theatrical suite, he sailed on the 16th of January 1895, for America,
with a view, it is said, to establishing a monarchy in that land. Mr.
Beerbohm does not appear to have succeeded in this project, though he
was interviewed in many of the newspapers of the States. He returned, re
infecta, to the land of his birth, three months later.
After that he devoted himself to the completion of his life-work, here
set forth.
The materials for this collection were drawn, with the courteous
acquiescence of various publishers, from The Pageant, The Savoy,
The Chap Book, and The Yellow Book. Internal evidence shows that Mr.
Beerbohm took fragments of his writings from Vanity (of New York) and
The Unicorn, that he might inlay them in the First Essay, of whose
scheme they are really a part. The Third Essay he re-wrote. The rest he
carefully revised, and to some he gave new names.
Although it was my privilege on one occasion to meet Mr. Beerbohm--at
five-o'clock tea--when advancing years, powerless to rob him of one
shade of his wonderful urbanity, had nevertheless imprinted evidence of
their flight in the pathetic stoop, and the low melancholy voice of one
who, though resigned, yet yearns for the happier past, I feel that
too precise a description of his personal appearance would savour of
impertinence. The curious, on this point, I must refer to Mr. Sickert's
and Mr. Rothenstein's portraits, which I hear that Mr. Lionel Cust is
desirous of acquiring for the National Portrait Gallery.
It is needless to say that this bibliography has been a labour of love,
and that any further information readers may care to send me will be
gladly incorporated in future editions.
I must here express my indebtedness to Dr. Garnett, C.B., Mr. Bernard
Quaritch, Mr. Clement K. Shorter, Mr. L. F. Austin, Mr. J. M. Bullock,
Mr. Lewis Hind, Mr. and Mrs. H. Beerbohm Tree, Mrs. Leverson, and Miss
Grace Conover, without whose assistance my work would have been far more
arduous.
J.L. THE ALBANY, May 1896.