During the Victorian era the publishing of magazines and periodicals accelerated at a phenomenal rate. This really was mass market publishing to a hungry audience eager for literary sustenance. Many of our greatest authors contributed and expanded their reach whilst many fledging authors also found a ready source for their nascent works and careers.

Amongst the very many was ‘The Yellow Book’. Although titled as ‘An Illustrated Quarterly’ it was sold as a cloth-bound hardback and within were short stories, essays, poetry, illustrations and portraits. It was edited by the American author Henry Harland, who also contributed, and its art editor was no less that the formidable Aubrey Beardsley, the enfant terrible of illustration.

Its yellow cover and name gave it an association with the risqué and erotic yellow covered works published in France. It was a visual shorthand for ideas that would push many boundaries of Society to more open interpretations. Being complete in each volume and slightly aloof it stayed away from serialised fiction and advertisements.

Within each lavishly illustrated edition were literary offerings that included works by such luminaries as Henry James, H G Wells, W B Yeats, Edith Nesbit, George Gissing and many others from the ascetic and decadent movements of the time.

The other notable inclusion was women both as contributors and amongst its editing staff, which was at odds with the then patriarchal gender norms.

Although it only survived for 13 issues its reach and influence were second to none.

1 - The Yellow Book - An Introduction. Volume 3

2 - Scarlet Runners by James S. Pyke-Nott

3 - The Love Germ by Constance Cotterell

4 - Chopin Op 47 by Stanley Victor Makower

5 - A Little Holiday by Oswald Sickert

6 - Alexander the Ratcatcher by Richard Garnett

7 - Far Above Rubies by Netta Syrett

8 - The Christ of Toro by Gabriela Cunninghame Graham

9 - The Runaway by Marion Hepworth-Dixon

10 - An Immortal by Sidney Benson Thorp

11 - A Melodrama - The Union by T. Baron Russell

12 - Lucy Wren by Ada Radford