This edition of Oscar Wilde’s Salome: A Tragedy in One Act, features sixteen provocative illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley. It was published by John Lane and the Bodley Head in London and New York in 1907. Beardsley’s illustrations are photomechanical line block reproductions in pen and ink in an Art Nouveau style. Illustrations are featured in full-page reproductions, adjacent to the text, and are characterized by black and white massed shapes. Beardsley’s illustrations provide a stylized, symbolic visual commentary to Wilde’s play. This edition succeeds Wilde’s original publication of Salome in 1894, which Wilde intended to have the play put on at the Palace Theatre in London. However, the play failed to debut as a result of the British Examiner of Plays’ censoring efforts due to the text featuring biblical characters and perverse notions of religion and sexuality. This scandal was furthermore compounded by Wilde’s 1895 public indecency trial, which significantly hindered not only Wilde’s career, but Beardsley’s as well because of the popular associations between them as a result of this text.

Source:

https://beta.1890s.ca/wilde_bio/

https://archive.org/details/salometragedyino00wildrich/page/n11/mode/2up

http://www.victorianweb.org/gender/salome.html