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An Ideal Husband. By the Author of Lady Windermere's Fan. London: Leonard Smithers and Co, 1899
Details
[WILDE, Oscar (1854-1900)]
An Ideal Husband. By the Author of Lady Windermere's Fan. London: Leonard Smithers and Co, 1899
First edition, large-paper issue signed by the author, number 20 of 100 copies on Dutch hand-made paper. An Ideal Husband premiered in London at the Haymarket on 3 January 1895; its closing night there coincided with Wilde's arrest for gross indecency. It continued at the Criterion with Wilde's name stricken from the playbills. Wilde's imprisonment led to a several years delay in the publication of the text, with his name also obfuscated. Mason 386.
Quarto. Half title (browning to endpapers and F3-4 resulting from loosely inserted newspaper clipping). Original lilac cloth with gilt design by Charles Shannon (spine slightly dark, corners and foot of spine lightly bumped, small mark to upper board); blue cloth portfolio and morocco-backed slipcase. Provenance: Alexander Hamilton Rice (American physician and explorer of the Amazon Basin, 1875-1956) and Eleanor Elkins Rice (American heiress, socialite, philanthropist, adventuress and Titanic survivor, 1861-1937) (bookplate) – Robert Goff (bookplate) – Barry Humphries (1934-2023; bookplate).
An Ideal Husband. By the Author of Lady Windermere's Fan. London: Leonard Smithers and Co, 1899
First edition, large-paper issue signed by the author, number 20 of 100 copies on Dutch hand-made paper. An Ideal Husband premiered in London at the Haymarket on 3 January 1895; its closing night there coincided with Wilde's arrest for gross indecency. It continued at the Criterion with Wilde's name stricken from the playbills. Wilde's imprisonment led to a several years delay in the publication of the text, with his name also obfuscated. Mason 386.
Quarto. Half title (browning to endpapers and F3-4 resulting from loosely inserted newspaper clipping). Original lilac cloth with gilt design by Charles Shannon (spine slightly dark, corners and foot of spine lightly bumped, small mark to upper board); blue cloth portfolio and morocco-backed slipcase. Provenance: Alexander Hamilton Rice (American physician and explorer of the Amazon Basin, 1875-1956) and Eleanor Elkins Rice (American heiress, socialite, philanthropist, adventuress and Titanic survivor, 1861-1937) (bookplate) – Robert Goff (bookplate) – Barry Humphries (1934-2023; bookplate).
