Fin-de-siecle artist Aubrey Beardsley died tragically young of tuberculosis at the age of 25, but he left an enormous body of work behind which has come to symbolise the decadence of the 1890s. Drawings, poster designs, bookbindings-- there was little that Beardsley"s famous gold-nibbed pen could not illustrate--and his astonishing range of expression found a willing audience in the more outré circles of the "Naughty Nineties". Famed for his outrageous erotic drawings--many of which adorned such artistic magazines as The Savoy and the Yellow Book--Beardsley pushed public opinion to the limit with his sequence of graphic illustrations for Aristophanes" Lysistrata, which were deemed obscene and remained unpublished until 1966. Biographer Stephen Calloway has closely scrutinised Beardsley"s life in the light of his subversive drawings and this in-depth, superbly illustrated book has been published to coincide with the Calloway-curated centenary exhibition held at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London during autumn 1998. --Catherine Taylor