[Wilde, Oscar.]

8vo, first edition, one of 800 copies on hand-made paper, 4pp. autograph letter by Wilde to the publisher Smithers tipped-in at the beginning, original white linen-backed cinnamon cloth, some offsetting to endpapers (affecting first page of the letter)

John B. Stetson, Jr, of Elkins Park, Pennsylvannia, book-label (Stetson's Oscar Wilde Collection was sold at Andersons Galleries, Inc on 23 April 1920)

Mason 371

Condition is described in the main body of the cataloguing, when appropriate.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

First edition of the author's famous long poem, whose mood of distress is "inseparable from the thought of Oscar Wilde's disgrace" (Seamus Heaney), together with a poignant autograph letter referring to his own work, written to the publisher Leonard Smithers during Wilde's final lonely years in Paris.

Smithers had published The Ballad of Reading Gaol on 13 February 1898. The letter (signed with initials, and with the autograph envelope attached to upper-paste-down, postmarked 24 May the same year 1898) is partly published in The Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde (ed. Holland and Hart-Davis, 2000),  but only from a slightly inaccurate transcription in the 1920 Stetson sale catalogue. It is one of a series of nearly daily exchanges between Wilde and Smithers at this time, with the author encouraging his publisher to visit him from London. Here Wilde entices his friend with the possiblity of a visit to see

"Rodin's wonderful statue of Balzac -- a superb work of genius - about the only thing done in this century, (except the Ballad of Reading Gaol of course) A Michael Angelo, if he rose from his bronze tomb, would admire..."

The rest of the letter discusses the trial in Paris of the mushroom-grower Xavier-Ange Carrara, who had, with the connivance of his wife, murdered a debt collector and burned his body in a coke oven ("...it was very tragic and the judge tortured them..."), the possible French translation of The Ballad by Henry D. Davry, advised by the publisher Aldred Vallette, and the arrangements being made for Wilde in Paris by his friend Robbie Ross ("Dear Robbie, being thoughtful for others, is making arrangements for me to live in a cheerful French pension, with table-d'hôte at 6.30 and pleasant ladies society. In the evening I am to play dominoes...")

Without Smithers' financial help -- a contributing factor to the publisher's bankruptcy two years later -- and daring it seems certain that The Ballad of Reading Gaol would not have been published in Wilde's lifetime. "There is little doubt that without Smithers the avant-garde movement of the nineties might have foundered..." (James G. Nelson, Oxford DNB)