Under the Hill, and Other Essays in Prose and Verse

In Short

This book serves as a compendium of the literary remains of Aubrey Beardsley, the famed illustrator and writer. It features the unfinished romantic novel Under the Hill, along with poems, letters, and personal recollections by his contemporaries. The work captures a specific moment in the 1890s when the boundaries between art, literature, and social provocation were aggressively redrawn. By gathering these diverse pieces, the volume preserves not only the writer’s polished, ornate prose but also the artistic temperament that made him both a celebrated figure and a controversial lightning rod in London’s literary circles.

The Story

The narrative centerpiece, Under the Hill, introduces the Abbé Fanfreluche, a character defined by his exquisite vanity and an almost pathological attention to his own appearance. He arrives at a mysterious "Hill"—a subterranean realm of indulgence and timeless artifice—seeking exile from the conventional world. The atmosphere here is thick with perfume, heavy with the scent of strange flowers, and populated by figures who seem to exist solely for the sake of luxury and ritual. Fanfreluche finds his way to the presence of Helen, a queen-like figure surrounded by a retinue of attendants, dwarfs, and pet creatures, including a pampered, snow-white unicorn.

The story progresses as a series of lavish, static tableaus rather than a traditional plot. We witness the meticulous process of Helen’s toilet, a ritualized performance involving an army of servants, perfumes, and delicate garments. Supper is served upon a terrace that defies the limits of imagination, featuring elaborate fountain designs, decadent menus, and a company of masked guests whose conversation devolves into "atrocious laughter" and personal raillery. Following this banquet, Fanfreluche retreats to a plush bedroom, where his thoughts wander through memories of saintly legends, aesthetic critiques, and the seductive, corrupt beauty of the art that surrounds him.

The narrative ends as it began: in a state of idle, pampered grace. Fanfreluche continues to drift through this enchanted landscape, observing the feeding of the unicorn and participating in the highly refined, artificial life of the Hill. Beyond the novel, the book expands its scope through poetry and essays. "The Three Musicians" captures a fleeting, sensuous encounter in the woods, while "The Ballad of a Barber" tells a more tragic, singular tale: Carrousel, a barber of unmatched talent, finds his composure shattered by the beauty of a young princess. After a moment of inexplicable, fatal hesitation during her coiffing, he is hanged. The remaining pages offer a glimpse into the author’s own voice through his letters and "Table Talk," where he defends his art against critical misunderstanding, dismisses his rivals with sharp, elegant disdain, and muses on the nature of literature and the decadence of his era.

How It Unfolds

The arrival at the gates Fanfreluche alights from his horse at the entrance to the mysterious Hill, obsessively adjusting his cravat and ruffle. He pauses to admire the erotic sculptures carved into the pillars before the sound of distant, shell-like music prompts him to enter.

The dressing-room ritual Helen prepares for the evening in a room filled with attendants and dwarfs, surrounded by an array of exquisite slippers and jewels. The scene culminates in her decision to appear before the court wearing only her gloves, a choice that captivates her companions.

The terrace banquet The company gathers for an impossible supper, where the food and wine facilitate a descent into disjointed, decadent conversation. The guests, hidden behind elaborate masks of velvet and talc, lose themselves in an atmosphere of excess and performative brilliance.

The morning after Fanfreluche wakes to the charms of a new environment, reflecting on the lives of saints and the nature of beauty. He concludes his morning by joining Helen in the garden to feed her unicorn, an act performed with the same careful, affected precision as all his other movements.

The People

Fanfreluche is an Abbé whose primary concern is the preservation of his own elegance. He wants to escape the mundane, and he succeeds by entering a world where nothing is expected of him but that he remain tasteful and observant.

Helen is the sovereign of the Hill. She wants to be worshipped and surrounded by beauty, standing at the center of a court that mirrors her own vanity. She remains largely unchanged by her environment, acting as the radiant, static sun around which the other inhabitants revolve.

Carrousel, the barber from the ballad, is a man defined by his devotion to his craft. He wants only to practice his art, yet he is undone when he encounters beauty he cannot merely shape with a comb. His downfall marks a rare moment of genuine, if fleeting, human emotion within the book’s otherwise artificial landscape.

Mrs. Marsuple serves as a counterpoint to the refined, slender figures of the court. She is a figure of excess, a "fat manicure" whose lyric enthusiasm for Helen provides a jarring, earthy texture to the otherwise ethereal scenes.

In Its Own Voice

"It was taper-time; when the tired earth puts on its cloak of mists and shadows, when the enchanted woods are stirred with light footfalls and slender voices of the fairies, when all the air is full of delicate influences, and even the beaux, seated at their dressing-tables, dream a little."

(This passage sets the tone for the Abbé's arrival at the mysterious, dreamlike landscape of the Hill.)

"He leant upon the toilet table, his fingers fumbled in his breast; he felt as foolish as a fable, and feeble as a pointless jest."

(These lines describe the sudden, catastrophic loss of composure experienced by the barber, Carrousel, at the height of his career.)

What It's Really About

The book explores the tension between artifice and reality, arguing that the true measure of a refined life is found in the pursuit of aesthetic perfection rather than moral utility. It poses the question of whether a life turned entirely toward beauty can ever be complete, or if it is destined to remain a "pointless jest." Beneath the surface of the ornate prose lies a profound skepticism toward the "civil" world, favoring instead a self-constructed, imaginative existence. The work treats the creation of beauty as a spiritual obligation, suggesting that the most meaningful aspects of life are those that defy conventional explanation and exist solely for their own strange, fleeting sake.

Why Read It Today

This volume is an essential artifact for readers drawn to the intersection of high style and melancholy. If you find beauty in the meticulously polished sentence and the darkly ornamental, you will find much to admire here. Beardsley’s writing feels like a walk through a velvet-lined room—perfumed, quiet, and slightly airless. It is not a book for those who demand narrative momentum or clear moral growth; the plot is deliberately static, acting as a frame for the author’s lush descriptions of clothing, food, and gesture.

Reading it today, one senses the fragility of its author’s world, a feeling enhanced by the inclusion of his letters and the historical context of his early death. The prose can feel challenging, filled with period-specific references and a vocabulary that prioritizes the sonic quality of a word over its direct utility. However, for the patient reader, it offers an immersion into a unique, brittle, and deeply intelligent mind. What stays with you is the haunting contrast between the author’s brilliant, biting wit in his personal correspondence and the dreamlike, almost hollow, perfection of his fiction. It is a work that lingers, leaving the reader with the impression of a fleeting, beautiful, and ultimately unattainable world.