2-880-233 - Shirley Markham Collection/Heritage Images

Initial Letter M (Venus) to Volpone, 1898. Illustration for an edition of Ben Johnson's eponymous comedy play, published by Leonard Smithers. This and four others were the only ones of twenty-four contemplated drawings that Beardsley managed to complete before he died of consumption aged 25. From "The Best of Beardsley" edited by R. A. Walker, [The Bodley Head, London, 1948]