NON-FICTION: Dandy's Life

AUBREY BEARDSLEY—Haldane MacFall —Simon & Schuster ($6). Some 30 years ago a lanky fop, carrying a pair of lemon-kid gloves, his hair falling about his ears like a hermit's, attended an ironic ceremony in a London church. The occasion was the unveiling of a bust of John Keats; after it was over, Aubrey Beardsley ". . . broke away from the throng, and, hurrying across the graveyard, stumbled and lurched awkwardly over the green mounds of the sleeping dead." It was an ironic ceremony because Artist Beardsley, as Poet Keats had done, was to go southward and die of consumption...

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