Call Number:

C0470

Repository:

Princeton University Library: Manuscripts Division

Extent:

• 3 boxes
• 1.2 linear feet

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

Identification of specific item; Date (if known); R. A. Walker Papers, Box and Folder Number; Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

Date:

1930-1936 (inclusive)

Creator:

Derry, Georges (1886-1960)

Form:

Correspondence and Typescripts.

Abstract:

Consists of papers of English editor R.A. Walker related to his edition of Letters of Aubrey Beardsley to Leonard Smithers (1937). Walker used the pseudonym of Georges Derry.

R. A. (Rainforth Armitage) Walker, who used the pseudonym "Georges Derry," was an important early champion of Aubrey Beardsley. He edited three collections of Beardsley's letters, wrote extensively about him, was the first to publish a number of Beardsley's drawings, and assembled materials for a definitive catalog. In 1955, Walker edited 55 letters from the Gallatin Collection of Beardsley in the Princeton University Library, which was printed in the Princeton University Library Chronicle (vol. XVI, no. 1).

Aubrey Beardsley, English artist, book illustrator, and writer, was born on August 21, 1872 in Brighton, England. He showed signs of intelligence and talent from a young age, developing writing, musical, and drawing skills. Unfortunately, Beardsley was also afflicted with poor health from a young age, infected with tuberculosis by age seven. He tried to work at an insurance company, but his weak lungs prevented him from working there for long. After briefly focusing on his writing, Beardsley began to work more on his drawing. His health improved, and seriously began his artistic career in the early 1890s. In 1892 he received a commission from J.M. Dent to illustrate Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur. This commission allowed him to survive on his drawing alone. In 1894, he created 17 images for Oscar Wilde's Salome, beginning his relationship with the avant-garde. From 1894 to 1895 he worked as art editor for Yellow Book, but fled to France when the Wilde was arrested. Upon his return to London, Beardsley founded a new magazine The Savoy, which included parts of his romantic novel Under the Hill. He illustrated Alexander Pope's The Rape of the Lock and Aristophanes' Lysistrata in 1896. Around the same time, Beardsley's health began deteriorating again and he was unable to work continuously. He passed away on March 16, 1898.

A. J. A (Alphonse James Albert) Symons (1900-1941) was an English writer and biographer. In 1922, he founded the "First Edition Club" to display exhibitions of manuscripts. He completed his first biographical work, Emin, Governor of Equatoria, in 1928. Previously to that, he produced a bibliography of the first works of Irish poet William Butler Yeats, as well as an anthological work on 1890s authors, of which he was an authority. His most notable work, The Quest for Corvo, was published in 1934. After his death in 1941 he left several unfinished works, such as a biography of Oscar Wilde.

The collection consists of Walker's related correspondence, his annotated typescripts, and galleys--as well as photostats of Aubrey Beardsley's letters in the Huntington Library--for the First Edition Club's edition of the Letters of Aubrey Beardsley to Leonard Smithers (1937), which was edited, with notes and an introduction, by Walker. Some of the correspondence also concerns the Print Collector's Quarterly in London and other matters related to Beardsley; included is correspondence between A.J.A. Symons of the First Edition Club and Oliver W. F. Lodge.

Arranged in the following order: preface, lists, transcripts, photostats, galleys, correspondence, documents, miscellaneous.