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Beardsley, Aubrey. Under the Hill and other essays. London: John Lane, 1904. 4to, pp. 70. Frontis photo. With seventeen drawings, three of the drawings previously unpublished. Bright blue cloth. Under the Hill is a romantic novel based on the legend of Tannhäuser, which Beardsley worked on throughout the 1890s but left unfinished at his death. Beardsley originally offered the book to John Lane but the early chapters were first published in serial form by Leonard Smithers in The Savoy. When Smithers was declared bankrupt, Lane acquired all the surviving material for the book, including most of the pictures, and issued this 1904 edition. Aubrey Vincent Beardsley (21 August 1872 – 16 March 1898) was an English illustrator and author. His drawings in black ink, influenced by the style of Japanese woodcuts, emphasized the grotesque, the decadent, and the erotic. He was a leading figure in the Aesthetic movement which also included Oscar Wilde and James A. McNeill Whistler. Beardsley's contribution to the development of the Art Nouveau and poster styles was significant, despite the brevity of his career before his early death from tuberculosis.