While William Morris’s Kelmscott Press books were produced on traditional hand presses, Dent seems to have been interested in demonstrating that a fine book could be produced using modern machinery. He chose as his illustrator Aubrey Beardsley (1872 - 1898), a young clerk whom he met through the bookseller and photographer F.H. Evans. He paid Beardsley £250 for a series of illustrations to Malory’s Morte. Beardsley produced over 350 designs, including letters, ornaments, and full-page illustrations.

The text was issued in 12 parts between June 1893 and mid-1894. There were two forms: a Large Paper edition on Dutch handmade paper, printed in black and red and limited to 300 copies; and a Small Paper edition on smooth gray-green paper, printed in black only, and limited to 1500 copies. The Large Paper run cost 6s 6d per part, while the Small Paper was exactly one-third the cost. Beardsley also designed the paper wrappers for both runs and for the binding cases which the publisher offered to subscribers at an additional cost: the Small Paper edition was also sold ready-bound at 2 guineas.

The book’s subsequent fame makes it hard to believe that it was little noticed at first, but the fact that it was sold by subscription limited its visibility to reviewers. The first print run of the Small Paper edition did not sell out immediately, but the Large Paper edition was fully subscribed at once, and few copies of it are in circulation today. The Colbeck Collection also includes copies (not displayed) of the 2nd Dent edition of 1909, a single volume issued in 1500 copies, and the 3rd Dent edition of 1927, issued in 1600 copies and including designs inadvertently omitted from the first edition.
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