He died at 25, of TB. It was a brief life, yet, despite being dogged by ill-health, he had worked with some of the most famous literary figures of his day. Although his name may not be familiar to you, you will almost certainly have heard of some of his closest friends and clients. He produced illustrations for Oscar Wilde, Edgar Allan Poe and for Sir Thomas Mallory’s ‘Morte D’Arthur’. He was also famous, or rather infamous, for his erotica, which often featured male figures with disproportionately large genitalia. As I don't wish to breach HubPages guidelines, I can only suggest that you check these out on one of the many links to his work that can be found by Googling his name!

An immaculate dandy in his dress and manners, he was a known associate of the reputedly homosexual aesthete, yet art historians have found no evidence to suggest that he was anything other than heterosexual. The many rumours about his sexuality that surfaced after his death all revolve around women, including the suggestion that he was in an incestuous relationship with his sister. He was, of course, Aubrey Beardsley.

Born in Buckingham Road, Brighton, on the south-east coast of England on 21 August 1872,
Aubrey Vincent Beardsley was the son of Vincent Paul Beardsley, and his wife, Ellen Agnus Pitt.

Mrs Beardsley came from a well-to-do local family, and was widely thought to have 'married beneath her'. But no matter how shocking this ill-advised union might have been, the scandal must have paled into insignificance alongside Aubrey's exploits. By the early age of nineteen, he had already carved a unique niche in artistic society. His quirky, and frequently erotic pen and ink drawings were popular with his friends and patrons, and Oscar Wilde's play Salome was published in 1893 alongside several of Beardsley's stylized and often disturbing images. When challenged about the nature of his work, he is quoted as saying; "I have one aim — the grotesque. If I am not grotesque I am nothing."

By the age of ten, Aubrey Beardsley was already a promising artist and his housemaster at Brighton Grammar School, Arthur William King, gave him great encouragement. Despite this, Beardsley left school at the end of 1888, to become a clerk at the Guardian Life and Fire Insurance Company in London, but his career in Insurance was to be very short-lived. Already afflicted with the disease that would eventually end his life, he suffered regular attacks of haemorrhaging of the lungs and he was forced to abandon his job in less than a year.

A short story sold to the magazineTit Bits gave him hopes that he might be able to become a writer, but in the spring of 1890, his health saw some real improvement, and he returned both to his job and to drawing. The famous Victorian Pre-Raphaelite artist, Edward Burne-Jones lived in the Sussex village of Rottingdean near to Beardsley's family home in Brighton, and Beardsley decided to seek advice from the older man. Edward Burne-Jones was enthusiastic, 'I seldom or never advise anyone to take up art as a profession, but in your case I can do nothing else.' he said.

One of Aubrey Beardsley's earliest commissions was for line drawings to illustrate Sir Thomas Mallory's " Le Morte D'Arthur". Burne-Jones's guiding hand is evident in this commission. Tales of the Round Table and Camelot were a recurring theme for the Pre-Raphaelites. The work of this talented newcomer was very well received and Burne-Jones must have been delighted with his protegee's efforts. Following the publication of Le Morte D’Arthur, Joseph Pennell wrote an article on Beardsley (along with new drawings by the artist) in the journal The Studio (1893) and this served to introduce the general public to this new artist and demand for his work in various publications, increased dramatically

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But it was another famous visitor to Beardsley's home town of Brighton, Oscar Wilde, who was soon to become a far bigger influence on the direction that his work would take, and the commission for the illustrations for Wilde's English version of 'Salome' gave Beardsley an opportunity to express his true artistic self.

Following the success of his Salome illustrations, Beardsley became the art editor of a renowned Fin de Sciecle literary publication, "The Yellow Book". Unfortunately, moving so closely through the same social circles as Wilde, Beardsley found it difficult to disassociate himself when Oscar Wilde was arrested over matters relating to his alleged homosexuality, a criminal offence in Victorian Britain. Beardsley completed work on the first five issues of the Yellow Book, but was fired when his name became involved with the Wilde scandal.

In April of 1895, Oscar Wilde was arrested on a charge of committing indecent acts, whilst reportedly carrying a Yellow Book under his arm. Various law-abiding and morally up-standing citizens pressured the publishers to relieve Beardsley of his post as art editor. Beardsley was fired, only to be immediately snapped up as art editor for the Savoy, a rival publication. Always a hard-working and dedicated artist, Beardsley continued to fulfill as many commissions as he could manage, despite the terrible ravages of tuberculosis, but slowly the constant bouts of ill-health began to take their toll.

With failing health, and a recognition that he would not live to a great age, Beardsley converted to Catholicism about a year before his death. It was with a new-found sense of his own mortality, and in acknowledgement of the sexually explicit nature of much of his work, that Beardsley was to plead with his publisher, Leonard Smithers, to "destroy all copies of Lysistrata and bad drawings...by all that is holy all obscene drawings." The illustrations for Lysistrata were completed for a privately printed edition, and represented some of his most expicitly erotic work. Leonard Smithers chose to ignore the wishes of a dying man, and continued to sell reproductions of Beardsley's work

Beardsley died of tuberculosis in Menton, France at the age of 25 on March 16, 1898.

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