The play was praised by his admirers as if it had been a masterpiece, and London discussed it the more because it was in French and not clapper-clawed by the vulgar.
The indescribable cold lewdness and cruelty of "Salome" quickened the prejudice and strengthened the dislike of the ordinary English reader for its author.

And when the drama was translated into English and published with the drawings of Aubrey Beardsley, it was disparaged and condemned by all the leaders of literary opinion.

The colossal popularity of the play, which Mr.Robert Ross proves so triumphantly, came from Germany and Russia and is to be attributed in part to the contempt educated Germans and Russians feel for the hypocritical vagaries of English prudery.

The illustrations of Aubrey Beardsley, too, it must be admitted, were an additional offence to the ordinary English reader, for they intensified the peculiar atmosphere of the drama.
Oscar used to say that he invented Aubrey Beardsley; but the truth is, it was Mr.Robert Ross who first introduced Aubrey to Oscar and persuaded him to commission the "Salome" drawings which gave the English edition its singular value.

Strange to say, Oscar always hated the illustrations and would not have the book in his house.