The Yellow Book, with a cover illustrated by Aubrey Beardsley.

The Yellow Book, published from 1894 to 1897 by Elkin Mathews and John Lane, later by John Lane alone, and edited by the American Henry Harland, was an important literary periodical that lent its name to the "Yellow" 1890s. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Aubrey Beardsley Aubrey Vincent Beardsley (August 21, 1872 – March 16, 1898) was an influential English illustrator, and author, best known for his erotic illustrations. ... 1894 (MDCCCXCIV) was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... 1897 (MDCCCXCVII) was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... Charles Elkin Mathews (1851 - November 10, 1921 was a publisher and bookseller who played an important role in the literary life of late 19th and early 20th century London. ... John Lane (March 14, 1854 - February 2, 1925) was a British publisher. ... Henry Harland (March 1, 1861 - December 20, 1905) was an American novelist and editor. ... This article is about the magazine as a published medium. ... The 1890s were sometimes referred to as the Mauve Decade, because William Henry Perkins aniline dye allowed the widespread use of that colour in fashion, and also as the Gay Nineties, under the then-current usage of the word gay which referred simply to merriment and frivolity, with no...

It was a leading journal of the British 1890s; to some degree associated with Aestheticism and Decadence, the magazine contained a wide range of literary and artistic genres, poetry, short stories, essays, book illustrations, portraits, and reproductions of paintings. Aubrey Beardsley was its first art editor, and he has been credited with the idea of the yellow cover, with its association with French fiction of the period. He obtained works by such artists as Charles Conder, William Rothenstein, John Singer Sargent, Walter Sickert and Philip Wilson Steer. The literary content was no less distinguished; authors found within its pages during the three years of its existence include: The Aesthetic movement is a loosely defined movement in art and literature in later nineteenth-century Britain. ... See also Decadent movement Decadence refers to a personal trait and, much more commonly, to a state of society. ... Aubrey Beardsley Aubrey Vincent Beardsley (August 21, 1872 – March 16, 1898) was an influential English illustrator, and author, best known for his erotic illustrations. ... Charles Edward Conder (24 October 1868 - 9 February 1909) was an English-born painter, who emigrated to Australia and was a key figure in the Heidelberg School, arguably the beginning of a distinctively Australian tradition in Western art. ... William Rothenstein (1872 - 1945) was an English painter, draughtsman and writer on art. ... Self Portrait, oil painting, 1907 John Singer Sargent (January 12, 1856 – April 14, 1925) was the most successful portrait painter of his era, as well as a gifted landscape painter and watercolorist. ... Walter Sickert Walter Richard Sickert (May 31, 1860 in Munich (Germany) – January 22, 1942) was an English impressionist painter. ... Philip Wilson Steer OM (28 Dec 1860-18 March 1942) was an English artist. ...

• Max Beerbohm
• Arnold Bennett
• "Baron Corvo"
• Ernest Dowson
• Frances Featherstone
• George Gissing
• Henry James
• Sir Edmund Gosse
• Richard Le Gallienne
• Charlotte Mew
• Count Eric Stenbock
• Arthur Symons
• H. G. Wells
• W. B. Yeats

Though Oscar Wilde never published anything within its pages, it was linked to him because Beardsley had illustrated his Salomé and because he was on friendly terms with many of the contributors. Soon after Wilde was arrested in April 1895 Beardsley was dismissed as the periodical's art editor, his post taken over by the publisher, John Lane, assisted by another artist, Patten Wilson. Although critics have contended that the quality of its contents declined after Beardsley left and that the Yellow Book became a vehicle for promoting the work of Lane's authors, a remarkably high standard in both art and literature was maintained until the periodical ceased publication in the spring of 1897. A notable feature was the inclusion of work by women writers and illustrators, among them Ella D'Arcy and Ethel Colburn Mayne (both also served as Harland's subeditors), George Egerton, Rosamund Marriott Watson, Ada Leverson, Netta and Nellie Syrett, and Ethel Reed. Max Beerbohm by William Rothenstein, 1893 Sir Henry Maximilian Beerbohm (August 24, 1872 - May 20, 1956) was an English parodist and caricaturist. ... Arnold Bennett, British novelist Enoch Arnold Bennett (May 27, 1867-March 27, 1931) was a British novelist. ... Frederick William Serafino August Lewis Mary Rolfe, better known as Baron Corvo (July 22, 1860 - October 25, 1913), was an English novelist and eccentric. ... Ernest Christopher Dowson (2 August 1867-23 February 1900), an English poet who was associated with the Decadent Movement, was born at Lee, south-east of London. ... Frances Alexander Featherstone was a minor English poet of the late nineteenth century. ... George Gissing (November 22, 1857 – December 28, 1903) was a British novelist. ... For other uses of this name, see Henry James (disambiguation). ... Edmund William Gosse (September 21, 1849 - May 16, 1928) was an English poet, author and critic, the son of Philip Henry Gosse. ... Richard Le Gallienne, in an illustration from his book Prose Fancies Richard Thomas Le Gallienne (1866 - 1947) was an English man of letters, very much associated with the literary world of London in the 1890s; after that he resided in the USA, without altering his period style. ... Charlotte Mary Mew (November 15, 1869 – March 24, 1928) was an English poet. ... Count Stanislaus Eric Stenbock (1858-1895) was a Swedish poet and writer of macabre fantastic fiction. ... Arthur Symons (February 28, 1865 - January 22, 1945), was a British poet and critic. ... Herbert George Wells (September 21, 1866 – August 13, 1946), better known as H. G. Wells, was an English writer best known for such science fiction novels as The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds, The Invisible Man and The Island of Doctor Moreau. ... William Butler Yeats, 1933 photograph, author unknown. ... Oscar Fingal OFlahertie Wills Wilde (October 16, 1854 – November 30, 1900) was an Irish playwright, novelist, poet, and short story writer. ... Salomé, originally written in French in 1891 and translated into English, is a tragedy by the Irish-born playwright Oscar Wilde. ... Ella DArcy Ella DArcy (1856-1939) was an author of novels and short stories of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Rosamund Marriott Watson Rosamund Marriott Watson (1860 – 1911) was a Victorian poet and critic who wrote under the pseudonym of Graham R. Tomson. ... Ada Leverson (1862-August 1933), nee Beddington, was a British writer, now known as a novelist. ...

Perhaps indicative of the "Yellow Book's" past significance in literary circles of its day is a reference to it in a fictional piece thirty-three years after it ceased publication. American author Willa Cather noted its presence in the personal library of one of her characters in the short story, Double Birthday (copyright 1929, by The Forum Publishing Company), noting that it had lost its "power to seduce and stimulate..."

The Yellow Book differed from other periodicals in that it was issued clothbound, made a strict distinction between the literary and art contents (only in one or two instances were these connected), did not include serial fiction, and contained no advertisements except publishers' lists. Complete runs of the 13 quarterly volumes will be found in most academic (and many public) libraries, though many of these sets are, in fact, reprints produced after the turn of the century by Lane and by others. A guide to the magazine's contents, The Yellow Book: A Checklist and Index, by Mark Samuels Lasner, was published in 1998.

References

External Links

All 13 volumes are available to download from www.archive.org in either djvu or pdf formats:

volume 1

volume 2

volume 3

volume 4

volume 5

volume 6

volume 7

volume 8

volume 9

volume 10

volume 11

volume 12

volume 13