WILDE | Poems, 1881, third edition; together with ALS from Wilde to Thomas Hutchinson

From the Collection of Steven Berkoff

WILDE, OSCAR

POEMS. LONDON: DAVID BOGUE, 1881

8vo, first edition, third issue ("Third Edition"), AUTOGRAPH LETTER BY WILDE TO THOMAS HUTCHINSON TIPPED-IN, original white parchment gilt, lettering in gilt with floral panels, collector's green cloth chemise, some light spotting and browning, binding soiled, newspaper clippings tipped-in or laid-down to endpapers and Q7

Mason notes that 'for this edition a printing of 250 copies of a new title-page... was made on September 26, the remainder of the book being part of the first printing in June'.

This copy belonged to Thomas Hutchinson (1856-1938), headmaster of Pegswood Voluntary Board School in Northumberland for more than forty years and called by Wilde 'an amateur of the apparel of books' (see Complete Letters, 2000, p. 395). Hutchinson has written his three stanza poem 'To Oscar Wilde | Oct 15/1890' on the reverse of the half-title. He also provides an 'Epilogue' on p. [238] noting that Wilde '...was sentenced to two years imprisonment with hard labour, for being guilty of unnatural offence'.

WITH TIPPED-IN AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED BY WILDE ('Oscar Wilde') TO THOMAS HUTCHINSON, 2 pages, 16 Tite Street, London, 10 October 1888 (dated by Hutchinson?), some creases

In this letter Wilde accepts the gift of a book (Hutchinson's Ballades and other Rhymes of a Country Bookworm which contained a parody of one of Wilde's poems) and praises one poem ('A Ballade of Enforced Impeccability') as being 'very dainty and clever'. He also agrees to Hutchinson's next book, Jolts and Jingles, being dedicated to him ('...It will give me great pleasure to accept the dedication of your new volume to which I look forward with much interest...')

LITERATURE:

Mason 306; Complete Letters, 2000, p. 359

PROVENANCE:

Christie's, 26 June 1991, lot 295

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