The New Inferno was a work by Stephen Phillips in the manner of Dante's Inferno - an

epic piece of poetry exploring the darker side of human existence.

To accompany this work, John Lane The Bodley Head commissioned Vernon Hill to

prepare a suite of illustrations depicting scenes from Phillips' work.

Published in extraordinarily low numbers (only 275 copies were for sale in the United

Kingdom and the United States of America), the illustrated variant of The New Inferno

was critically acclaimed and Hill's illustrations teamed with Phillips' text were sufficient to

stir significant feelings among critics. Hill's signature Art Nouveau Gothic approach, in

particular, was so powerful that associations with Beardsley were made and his technical

approach to the preparation of the illustrations was meticulous.

The Review published in The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs (March 1912), for

example, included the following comments:

This joint venture by Mr Stephen Phillips and Mr Vernon Hill is evidently intended

to challenge criticism. Not long since Mr Phillips fell back upon Goethe's ''Faust''

as a source of inspiration, and now he has taken refuge with Dante. His present

poem deals with an unpleasant view of human society, suggestive of a bitter and

disappointed nature. Mr Vernon Hill's sixteen illustrations only intensify the

unpleasingness of Mr Phillip's thoughts. Between them, as was once said of

Aubrey Beardsley, they represent here a hideous and putrescent aspect of modern

life. Blake, Flaxman and Beardsley all seem to have shared in Mr Hill's visual

development.

For connoisseurs of Hill's work, we have prepared sets of 16 Greeting Cards displaying each of his major monotone images for The New Inferno and on the left, we show an example of how these Greeting Cards appear.

Code: VH NI CS(16)
Price: US$80.00

Similarly, we have provided options for the purchase of reproductions of these

wonderful images in a range of sizes as our Fine Art Posters.

Each of those Fine Art Posters is prepared with archival quality materials to ensure

many years of ongoing enjoyment.

Should you wish to order a Fine Art Poster or an individual Greeting Card from this

suite, or simply like to read more about any of the images in this superb set and the

ballads that served as the inspiration for Vernon Hill, please follow the hyperlinks

(that is, click on the illustration of interest) and you will be taken through to a page

dedicated to that illustration.

To make a purchase, simply click on the appropriate "Add to Cart" button and you

will be taken through to our Shopping Cart secured through PayPal. Multiple

purchases will be consolidated by that feature and shipping and handling costs to any

destination in the world are accommodated by our flat-rate fee of US$20 for every

US$200 worth of purchases.

Of course, should you wish to discuss some customised options, we welcome your

contact on any matter through ThePeople@SpiritoftheAges.com.

In the meantime, enjoy perusing these wonderful images from Vernon Hill.

An example of one of our Fine Art

Posters as presented in either a

10x18'' or 20x36'' format