Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press (2011)

Limited Edition. Signed.

One of 250 numbered copies signed by Barry Moser, the illustrator, and Joseph Donohue, the translator. The burgundy leather bound book is decorated with silver lettering and a stamping of one of Moser's engravings on the front cover. The book is illustrated with 23 engravings by Moser. These 23 engravings are also included as loose prints (all signed) in a separate folder. The folder and book are housed in a black and marbled clamshell case. Fine.



Oscar Wilde's 1893 play Salomé, the only one of his works to be written in French, was subsequently translated into English by Wilde's friend, Lord Alfred Douglas, in a manner judged by Wilde to be marred by "schoolboy faults" and published accompanied by illustrations that sensationalized and mischaracterized the play, yet this translation has long remained the basis for English-language productions of the play, which perhaps not coincidentally has enjoyed far greater popularity in the non-English speaking world. Donohue (emeritus, English, U. of Massachusetts Amherst) seeks to redress this situation by translating Salomé into contemporary American colloquial ("yet spare") English. The new translation is also accompanied by new engraving illustrations by Moser (art, Smith College).

Outraged by the sexual perversity of this one-act tragedy, Great Britain's Lord Chamberlain banned Salomé from the national stage. Symbolist poets and writers — Stéphane Mallarmé and Maurice Maeterlinck among them — defended the play's literary brilliance. Beyond its notoriety, the drama's haunting poetic imagery, biblical cadences, and febrile atmosphere have earned it a reputation as a masterpiece of the Aesthetic movement of fin de siècle England. Written originally in French in 1892, this sinister tale of a woman scorned and her vengeance was translated into English by Lord Alfred Douglas. The play inspired some of Aubrey Beardsley's finest illustrations, and an abridged version served as the text for Strauss' renowned opera of the same name.