Wilde, OscarBiblio.com
WILDE, OscarBiblio.com
An Ideal Husband.
1899Best.-Nr. 182530London: Leonard Smithers and Co. 1899. I really think it reads the best of my plays First edition trade issue one of 1000 copies. Wilde's political comedy premiered at the Haymarket on 3 January 1895 and ran until 6 April. His arrest the day before the production closed precipitated his "utter social destruction" ODNB and the play was not published in book form until two years after his release from prison. An Ideal Husband led George Bernard Shaw to hail Wilde as "our only thorough playwright. He plays with everything: with wit with philosophy with drama with actors and audience with the whole theatre" Saturday Review 12 January 1895. Wilde himself wrote to the publisher stating that "I really think it reads the best of my plays" cited in Nelson p. 392. The edition also included 100 signed copies on large paper and 12 on Japanese vellum reserved for presentation. Small quarto. Original pink linen with gilt floral motifs after designs by Charles Shannon spine lettered in gilt fore and bottom edges uncut. Bookplate of the collector and Steinbeck bibliographer Adrian Homer Goldstone 1897-1977. Spine cocked and sunned extremities bumped occasional patches of rubbing contents foxed. A very good copy. Mason 385. James G. Nelson Publisher to the Decadents: Leonard Smithers in the Careers of Beardsley Wilde Dowson 2000. hardcover
Peter Harrington · Vereinigtes Königreich2.750,00 £≈ 3.284,45 €
