The Yellow Book was a periodical published in the 1890s that included works supporting feminism and works condemning it. The thirteen volume periodical, published from 1894 to 1897 (Kooistra and Denisoff), included all types of works, such as photographs, paintings, sketches, poems, short stories, reviews and essays, which intrigued a wide audience. This exhibit will focus on two pieces from volume three of The Yellow Book, those being Frederick Greenwood’s ciritcal essay, and Aubrey Beardsley’s pen and ink art work.
    The variety of the type of work in The Yellow Book is part of the reason why the periodical became a scandalous and desired addition to people’s book collections; even its yellow hard cover enticed people to buy it because it looked so different from all other periodicals available. The periodical received mixed reviews. One American article from 1894 claimed it to be rather distasteful, citing examples of Aubrey Beardsley’s works in volume three as "absurdities" (The New York Times 23), while another review from the magazine The Saturday Review, a magazine published in England during this same time, claimed his work as "freakish", yet meaning it in a positive way (27). Towards the end of its publication, The Yellow Book was mistakenly associated with Oscar Wilde, and, because of his controversial trial, the publisher John Lane attempted to make it more conservative periodical by including more conservative writers and literary historians (Bracy 660), and some contributors followed Aubrey Beardsley, who was fired promptly during the controversy, to work for his competitive periodical, The Savoy (Turner). Once the periodical became more conservative, its popularity decreased and the periodical ultimately ceased publication, as it became less interesting due to its lack of variety.