WILDE, Oscar (1854–1900). The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People. London: Leonard Smithers and Co., 1899.
8vo. Half–title. Original lilac cloth, gilt designed by Charles Shannon, uncut (spine skewed, extremities sunned, some fraying at extreme ends and corners). Provenance: St. John Lucas (1879–1934), ownership inscription dated 1899. Lucas, who studied at University College of Oxford, was an English poet known for his anthologies of verse whose first work was published by Smithers in 1899. He was also a close friend and mentor of English poet Rupert Brooke (a catalogue note states this is “Sir” John Lucas but this is an unlikely candidate); B.N. Holtham (bookplate); old typed catalogue card housed in a tipped–in envelope on half–title (“the value of this book lies in the fact that… pasted on the flyleaf is a photograph of Oscar Wilde and Lord Douglas”).
FIRST EDITION, LIMITED ISSUE, number 34 of 1000 copies. The original play opened to wide acclaim at the St. James’s Theatre in London on 14 February 1895 but was withdrawn after 86 performances following Wilde’s arrest and imprisonment on charges of gross indecencies as consequences of his failed attempt at a libel suit against Lord Queensbury, the father of Wilde’s homosexual lover, Lord Alfred Douglas. Wilde was released from prison on 19 May 1897 and in February 1899, Smithers published this work some four years after the original production with some changes that Wilde had made in the preceding months.
WITH AN ORIGINAL ALBUMEN PHOTOGRAPH OF WILDE AND LORD ALFRED DOUGLAS (142 x 98 mm), mounted on the front free endpaper verso, small nick to image, printed in sepia of the iconic image depicting Douglas sitting on a bench wearing a straw–hat with Wilde leaning with his left foot on the bench which was taken in the summer of 1893 in Oxford. The photograph is reproduced in Richard Ellman, Oscar Wilde (1988), following p. 428.
Original albumen photographs of this memorable image of Wilde and “Bosie” are rarely offered at auction, the only times being in 1985 and 2006 at Sotheby’s. We also only locate three copies at the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library at UCLA in the Oscar Wilde collection and one copy at the Morgan Library. Mason 382.