2-880-220 - Shirley Markham Collection/Heritage Images

The Baron's Prayer, 1895-1896. A man prays before a pile of books. '- to Love an altar built; Of twelve vast French romances, neatly gilt. There lay three garters, half a pair of gloves; And all the trophies of his former loves'. Illustration for "The Rape of the Lock" by Alexander Pope, published privately by Leonard Smithers in 1896. Rape in this context refers not to sexual violence but to the theft and carrying away of a lock of hair, from the Latin rapere: to snatch, to grab, to carry off. From "The Best of Beardsley" edited by R. A. Walker, [The Bodley Head, London, 1948]