Happy Birthday to Oscar Wilde, one of our favourite fin de siècle writers! Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie
Happy Birthday to Oscar Wilde, one of our favourite fin de siècle writers! Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was born on the 16th October 1854. Here are some of our Wilde items we currently have in stock. Including an autograph letter signed by Wilde to an unnamed artist or photographer (“Dear Sir”) arranging a sitting. We also have an inscribed copy of Wilde’s “Poems”: “A. A. Hayes from his friend Oscar Wilde. June 3rd ‘82. In memory of some pleasant hours. Boston.” Hayes was a travel writer and journalist, who specialised in accounts of life in the West, particularly Colorado: in 1880 he wrote an essay on Leadville, Colorado, where Wilde later had his most unlikely social triumph, charming silverminers underground. According to Ellmann he lived in some style in New York, and was Wilde’s host on the celebrated evening when Wilde upstaged the New York production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Patience: “At first Wilde kept to the back of the box, out of sight, but self-effacement was not his way, and eventually he moved forward. When J.H. Ryley came on stage as Bunthorne, the whole audience turned and stared at Wilde. Bunthorne was made up as Whistler in England, as Oscar Wilde in America. Wilde now smiled at one of his women companions and commented patronizingly. 'This is one of the compliments that mediocrity pays to those who are not mediocre.’” -- source link
#oscar wilde#poetry#inscribed#maggs bros