Perhaps an argument that may be offered is that the Yellow Book has been noted to have declined in both contributors and readers over the years, especially following the expulsion of art editor Aubrey Beardsley. Despite the adverse critical reaction to the first few volumes of the Yellow Book and especially to Beardsley’s art editorship, contemporary scholars acknowledge that Beardsley’s art editorship contributed greatly to the high quality of the early issues of the Yellow Book. Perhaps if the earlier volumes reflected a higher quality avant garde taste, then later volumes, such as the one that Makower’s essay was included in, were lower quality and less avant garde and more pedestrian. Walter Sickert was published in the Yellow Book fifteen times, spanning the first five volumes of the Yellow Book, but never again after that. Evidently, earlier volumes of the Yellow Book were much more controversial to critics, as one reviewer had remarked that Sickert is merely “disguised as [an] artist” (“A Yellow Melancholy”). Clearly, this cold reception is indicative of the counter mainstream area that this particular issue of the Yellow Book was associated with. With such a frequency in appearances to be cut off following the issue after Beardsley’s termination, it is possible that the declining quality of the Yellow Book was reflected in the inclusion of Makower’s essay, however a more comprehensive argument would be needed for such a claim to be supported.

In this exhibit, I have discussed the ways in which “The Old Oxford Music Hall” by Walter Sickert and “On the Art of Yvette Guilbert” by Stanley V. Makower prove that the Victorian preoccupation with the celebrities of the music hall and celebrity culture is reflected inthe Yellow Book. This is not to suggest thatthe Yellow Bookwas and is not a highly influential literary publication and it is not to suggest thatthe Yellow Bookdid not include works that can be viewed as avant garde and experimental. Instead, I only hope to suggest that perhaps there is not a single lens to viewthe Yellow Book. Perhaps as readers in the twenty-first century, over a hundred years after the publication ofthe Yellow Book, we can reconcile that there could be a dual nature ofthe Yellow Book, in which it simultaneously reflects the highbrow culture of the avant garde, bohemian nature of fin de siècle England and the supposed lower culture of the masses.