Wilde Oscar

1877 · réf. 57710 — THREE RARE EARLY WILDE POEMS 8vo. 4 collective volume title page & half-title 2 corrigenda ii 344 plus bound in at the beginning of each of the 12 issues 2 leaves with the original issue title page and its list of contributors contemporary half brown morocco brown cloth on sides very neatly rebacked with the original spine relaid very good. Signed on front free end paper "T. W. Rolleston" and with quite a number of manuscript corrections throughout. This magazine was first issued three issues per year as wrappered magazines. At the completion of the volume 12 issues the remaining stock was issued as a bound volumes in cloth with a general title page. However in the publisher's cloth issue the title pages and contributors lists for the individual issues were discarded as the pagination is continuous without them. Here these have most unusually been retained. This volume contains in the Trinity and Michaelmas 1876 and Hilary 1877 some of the very earliest of Oscar Wilde's published work. These are Mason Wilde Bibliography 72 73 and 74. These all predate Wilde's first separately published book Ravenna of 1878 and all three were later included in Wilde's Poems of 1881 or 1908. W. H. Rolleston was among the other contributors as was Oscar's brother William. It appears that Rolleston had these issues bound himself and so the preliminary title and list of contributor leaves for the individual issues were retained. William McGee hardcover