Cover of the magazine The Savoy

On his return to London, Beardsley found a new publisher, Leonard Smithers, who supported the unconventional and avant-garde projects with profits from erotica and pornography. With Smithers and the poet Arthur Symons, Beardsley launched a new magazine, The Savoy. The first issue appeared in July 1896 and, in addition to contributions from George Bernard Shaw, W. B. Yeats, Max Beerbohm, and Havelock Ellis contained the first part of Beardsley’s ‘romantic novel’ Under the Hill, which, although never finished, remains a minor masterpiece of its period. At this time, Beardsley’s style changed to reflect his enthusiasm for French Rococo engravers. His new manner proved particularly appropriate to his next major book illustrations, for Alexander Pope’s poem The Rape of the Lock, drawn in early 1896 and published by Smithers in a sumptuous edition in the summer of that year.