[Literature] Swinburne, Algernon Charles. Adah Isaacs Menken A Fragment Of Autobiography

London: Printed for Private Circulation Only, 1917. First and only edition, one of 12 unnumbered copies. 4to. x, (ii) pp. Publisher's own copy, with printed book-plate of Clement K. Shorter on front paste-down. Illustrated with three black and white portraits of Adah Isaacs Menken, one with Swinburne, and one facsimile poem. Three-quarter blue levant over marbled paper-covered boards, lightly soiled; top edge gilt, other edges untrimmed; marbled endpapers; articles from The Dickensian magazine tipped- and laid-in at front, regarding Menken (dated 'Sept 1917' in manuscript at top right); original stiff orange wrappers, printed in black, bound in at rear.

Very rare publication on American actress and poet Adah Isaacs Menken (1835-1868), credited to English poet Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909), but compiled by literary critic Clement S. Shorter (1857-1926). Published nearly a decade after Swinburne's death, this is one of only 12 copies printed for private circulation by Shorter.

Menken was one of the highest earning actresses of her time, renowned for her theatrical performance in the hippodrama "Mazeppa", a popular mid-19th century European production based on a Lord Byron poem. Poet Algernon C. Swinburne was one of many well known literary admirers of Menken's from around the world, along with Alexander Dumas, Charles Dickens, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Walt Whitman, Samuel Clemens, and Bret Harte. Menken and Swinburne were known to have had an affair during her tour through England in 1867 just a year before her death.

Menken and Swinburne had a brief and unconventional relationship, as Yisreal Levin recounts in A.C. Swinburne and the Singing Word New Perspectives on the Mature Work: "According to the story...Dante Gabriel Rossetti, scandalized to discover that the author of the erotic Poems and Ballads was still technically a virgin, approached Menken to secure his friend's sexual initiation. Swinburne was taken to see her perform in Mazeppa at The Theatre Royal... where 'her beauties were pointed out to him'...leading to an affair of several months...Swinburne obviously enjoyed the coup of having such a well-known and desirable woman for his mistress...[he] insisted that they had their photograph taken as a couple...Menken's most recent biographer, Renee M. Sentilles, points out that she and Swinburne shared many literary passions...as well as a 'fascination with sexuality outside of normative behavior'..." (pp. 136-38)

After her death in 1868, Menken's tombstone featured a line from Swinburne's poem "Ilicet", as was her request.