2-880-196 - Shirley Markham Collection/Heritage Images

The Battle of the Beaux and the Belles, 1895-1896. Belinda knocks over a chair in her rage. 'To arms, to arms! the fierce virago cries; And swift as lightning to the combat flies. All side in parties, and begin th'attack; Fans clap, silks rustle, and tough whalebones crack'. Illustration for "The Rape of the Lock" by Alexander Pope, published privately by Leonard Smithers in 1896. Rape in this context refers not to sexual violence but to the theft and carrying away of a lock of hair, from the Latin rapere: to snatch, to grab, to carry off. From "The Best of Beardsley" edited by R. A. Walker, [The Bodley Head, London, 1948]