Author: Wilde, Oscar.

Publisher:  London: John Lane and The Bodley Head.

Format:  Hardcover quarto with beige cloth and gilt illustrated boards, previous owner’s annotation and date “Aug. 18, ‘67” in ink on flyleaf, “Angus & Robertson Ltd” bookseller sticker on pastedown, 36pp, 30.5 x 23cm.

Limited to 1000 copies. Illustrated and decorated by “Alastair”, with 12 colour lithograph plates. Held in SLNSW; The Met.

According to the publisher’s note on the limitation page “this edition…cannot be reprinted, as the stones from which the offset plates were printed were in Belgium at the time of the German invasion, and were destroyed.”

The illustrator of this book, Hans Henning Voight (German, 1887–1969), used the pseudonym “Alastair,” and was a dancer and mime as well as an illustrator. He lived at Versailles for a time where he corresponded with his lover Richard Thoma, and supposedly went by the nickname “Baron.” He was considered part of the Decadent movement, of which Oscar Wilde (Irish, 1854–1900) was also associated, and The Sphinx was seen as Wilde’s best contribution to the movement. He remarked of the poem that “My first idea was to print only three copies: one for myself, one for the British Museum, and one for Heaven.” Ref: Wiki.

Soiling to boards, slight foxing and gutter splitting to interior.