THE OSCHOLARS
___________

Vol. IV

No. 11

Issues no 43: December 2007

Click     for the Editorial pages of the current issue of THE OSCHOLARS
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SOME SELL AND OTHERS BUY

A monthly report on Wilde and related subjects for sale.

Readers are invited to advertise (free) for items sought or for sale / exchange

Please mention THE OSCHOLARS if ordering or inquiring, as this will help keep us on mailing lists.

We hope this page will be an early port of call for those offering or seeking books on Wilde and the fin-de-siècle. It will, we also hope, serve to chart fluctuating prices. Obviously it can never replace such facilities as Abe or Amazon, but it should offer background to our other pages.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. Auctions		IV. Bookshops & Publishers
II. Books		V. Ebay
III. Posters		VI. Endpiece

I. AUCTIONS

We plan to increase our coverage of the auction rooms, and hope to appoint an Associate Editor charged with this. On 13th December in London , Sotheby’s offered a collection of Wilde material:
Lot 80:
i) Photographic portrait of Oscar Wilde, a fine portrait showing the author wearing a coat with buttonhole flower and pocket handkerchief, seated, cross-legged, signed by Wilde, mounted on photographer's card headed "W. & D. Downey Photographers by Special Appointment to her Majesty the Queen. Studios 57 and 61 Elbury Street London S.W.", [? New York, ?1880s] Another print of this photograph is illustration no.40 in Richard Ellmann's biography Oscar Wilde ("Wilde, about 1894"). Another signed version was used as the frontispiece to Sherard's Oscar Wilde The Story of an Unhappy Friendship, where Sherard dates the photograph to 1892. Three photographs, possibly from the same sitting, were sold as lot 22 in Sotheby's sale Oscar Wilde, 29 October 2004		(ii) Playbills for Lady Windermere's Fan, St. James's Theatre, 20 February 1892; A Woman of No Importance, Haymarket Theatre, 19 April 1893; An Ideal Husband, Haymarket Theatre, 3 January 1895; The Importance of Being Earnest, St. James's Theatre, 14 February 1895 photograph and playbills mounted in album, specially bound in purple morocco by Judith Ivry, marbled endpapers
Lot 81.
Ravenna. Oxford: Thomas Shrimpton and Son, 1878, original wrappers, [Mason 301], wrappers worn, detached and defective; Lady Windermere's Fan. Elkin Matthews and John Lane, 1893, small 4to, one of 500 copies, publisher's advertisements, original cloth gilt, edges uncut, [Mason 357]; The Picture of Dorian Gray. Privately printed, 1890 [but ?1904], a later pirated edition, title printed in red and black, original boards with paper spine label, edges uncut, spine ends worn, remnants of note attached to front free endpaper; The Importance of Being Earnest. Leonard Smithers, 1899, small 4to, some later MS notes and markings, original cloth, edges uncut, [Mason 381], binding soiled; De Profundis. Methuen and Co., 1905, original cloth, top edge gilt, others uncut, [Mason 388], slightly foxed at beginning, 8vo except where stated
Lot 82.
Autograph Letter Signed, to the artist F.H. Townshend concerning Townshend's illustration for ‘The Canterville Ghost’ ("...I am very much pleased with your picture ... and should like to see you about another..."), 4 pages, 8vo, embossed stationery of 32 Dover Street, 16 Tite Street, Chelsea, [early February 1887], tear to top outer corner of first leaf affecting address, dust staining to last page		CATALOGUE NOTE "...You have made the stained glass window modern American, one of John Lafarge's in fact. It should be old English. The ghost's legs are a little too transparent..." Wilde's story 'The Canterville Ghost', which tells of the failed attempts of the spirit of the Elizabethan Sir Simon de Canterville to terrorise the modernising American minister Hiram B. Otis and his family, was first serialised in the Court and Society Review, February-March 1887. The illustration discussed here depicts Otis offering the ghost a bottle of Tammany Rising Sun Lubricator with which to oil his chains. Frederick Henry Townshend (1868-1920) went on to illustrate Kipling and become art editor of Punch.
Lot 84
Wilde, Oscar--[Clemens, Samuel L.] ‘Mark Twain’.The Prince And The Pauper. Boston: James R. Osgood And Company, 1882. 4to, first edition, inscribed by Oscar Wilde (‘For Joe Mack | from his | friend | Oscar Wilde, | affectionately. | New York | May 11. | '82’) on page following dedication, original green cloth, gilt design and lettering to upper cover and spine, morocco-backed solander box, damp-staining to lower outer corners, occasional small tears (not affecting text), hinges cracked, front free endpaper and first blank loose, extremities rubbed		CATALOGUE NOTE On 11 May 1882, Wilde was in New York near the end of the first stage of his extensive lecture tour. As he wrote to Norman Forbes-Robertson, ‘My second lecture at New York was a brilliant success. I lectured at Wallack's Theatre in the afternoon, not an empty seat, and I have greatly improved in speaking and in gesture’ (Complete Letters, p.168). The subject of the lecture was ‘Aestheticism and house decoration’. The identity of ‘Joe Mack’ is a matter for speculation. No person by that name has been identified as an acquaintance of Wilde's. He may have been a member of the audience at the lecture who was otherwise unknown to Wilde. If that is the case, it is perhaps odd that Wilde should address him as ‘his friend’. It could be that Joe Mack is a nickname given by Wilde to one of his friends or associates in the United States. In any case, this copy links Wilde, a Briton taking America by storm, with Mark Twain, the archetypal American whose ‘British novel’ this is

On 11th December, Sotheby’s in London held an auction of Victorian and Edwardian paintings. To see the results (which totalled £5,443,700) click the catalogue .

Sotheby’s also held a sale of Impressionist Art on 13th December in Paris. To see the results (which totalled 11,471,400 €) click the catalogue :

II. BOOKS

Booksellers may contact us as oscholar@gmail.com with lists of their 1890s material.

Sandra Solomon of Turn of the Century Books is offering a small book titled Wildeania, published by A.L. Chatterton in New York.  It is not dated but looks to be ca. 1900.  It is maroon cloth bound with a painting inset in a small oval in the front board.  She is open to offers for this, her research leading her to believe that the only copy in an American library is in the Clark.

A list of books offered by Delectus Books was published in our December 2006 edition: further selections were given in January, February and November 2007. Some of these may still be available. Books offered by Delectus (and others) relating to the fin-de-siècle in France may be found in our sister publication Rue des beaux arts. Delectus can be found at www.delectusbooks.com.

We thank Delectus for a further list of 29 items.

1. [027382] Kahn, Annette. J-. K. Huysmans: Novelist, Poet and Art Critic. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1982. First Edition. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Cloth. New / No Jacket, as Issued. ISBN: 0835717151. Excellent study of French author J.K. Huysmans and his works including his classic novel on satanism, La Bas and the decadent classic Against Nature, along with his art criticism of Gustave Moreau, Degas, Jean-Louis Forain, Jean Francois Raffaelli, Felicien Rops, Odilon Redon with comprehensive notes, bibliography and index. £18.95

2. [028271] Kosinski, Dorothy M.. Orpheus in Nineteenth-Century Symbolism. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1989. First Edition. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Cloth. New / New. ISBN: 0835718689. Academic study of the portrayal of the Orpheus myth in all art forms during the 19th century. Profusely illustrated with full bibliography and index. Part of the series Studies in the Fine Arts: The Avant-Garde, No 61. £35.00

3. [024597] Lloyd, Christopher. J.K. Huysmans and the Fin-de-Siecle Novel. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1992. First Paperback Edition. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Paperback. New ISBN: 0748602348. An introductory study of Huysmans' writing, looking at all his major works and relating them to the work of Zola, Flaubert and the Goncourt brothers. Using recently published letters the author reveals new aspects of Huysmans' personal life and shows that textuality and sexuality, writing and living are inseparable for this author. Huysmans' use of French language and the parallels he drew between literature and the visual arts are discussed. The book ends with analyses of related texts, grouped thematically and covering his treatment of women, the monstrous and the supernatural. £18.00

4. [028985] Louys, Pierre. The Erotic Adventures of Toinon. London: Velvet Publications, 1999. First English Edition. 12mo - over 6¾" - 7¾" tall. Laminated Boards. New / No Jacket, as Issued. ISBN: 1871592836. Young Antoinette, known as Toinon, is the precocious narrator of these memoirs from a select girl's boarding school. Toinon details the wild sexual experimentation that transpires nightly between herself, her seventeen co-boarders, and certain members of staff. This explicit hymn to lesbianism and sexual mania was among the final papers of Pierre Louys, the author famous for The She Devils. First and only English translation of this French erotic classic from the turn of the century by John Phillips. Hand numbered limited edition of 500 copies only. £8.95

5. [020745] Machen, Arthur. Selected Letters: The Private Writings of the Master of the Macabre. Wellingborough: Aquarian Press, 1988. First Edition. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Hard Cover. New / New. ISBN: 0850307821. This first major assembly of Machen's annotated correspondence spans sixty years and reveals the man behind the masterpieces. The sequences of letters to his friends A. E. Waite, Colin Summerford, and John Gawsworth, and to fellow authors and publishers, chart his progress from literary man of the fin de siècle, initiate in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, actor with Frank Benson's Shakespeare company, Fleet Street journalist, to his final years as a frail but indomitable sage living in quiet retirement in Buckinghamshire. With a foreword by the author's son, Hilary. Selected and edited by Roger Dobson, Godfrey Brangham and R.A. Gilbert. LAST FEW COPIES. £7.99

6. [013900] Mackail, J.W.. The Life of William Morris. New York: Benjamin Blom, 1968. First Thus. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Cloth. New / No Jacket as Issued. ISBN: 0405087675. £35.00

7. [004720] Mallarmé, Stéphane. Poésies. Edinburgh: The Tragara Press, 1986. First Edition. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Paperback in Wraps. Private Press. New / New. ISBN: 094818910X. Selected and edited with notes and a bibliography by Bruce Morris. Translated by Arthur Symons. Hand numbered edition of 150 copies only. Stéphane Mallarmé (March 18, 1842 - September 9, 1898), whose real name was Étienne Mallarmé, was a French poet and critic. He was born in Paris. He worked as an English teacher, and spent much of his life in relative poverty; but he was a major French symbolist poet and rightly famed for his salons, occasional gatherings of intellectuals at his house for discussions of poetry, art, philosophy. The group became known as les Mardistes, because they met on Tuesdays, and through it Mallarmé exerted considerable influence on the work of a generation of writers. £20.00

8. [027391] Markert, Lawrence W.. Arthur Symons: Critic of the Seven Arts. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1988. First Edition. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Cloth. New / No Jacket, as Issued. ISBN: 083571845X. Biographical study of the pivotal 1890s poet, editor, literary, theatre and music critic Arthur Symons. (1865-1945). He became a friend of Yeats, G. A. Moore, and H. Ellis, and attended the Rhymers' Club; his early volumes of poetry (Days and Nights, 1889; London Nights, 1895) were very much of their time in their celebration of decadence and the demi-monde of stage, street, and Café Royal. He was editor of the Savoy, 1896, and published Beardsley, Conrad, Dowson, L. P. Johnson, etc. His The Symbolist Movement in Literature (1899) was an attempt to introduce French Symbolism to England, and he wrote critical studies of Blake, Baudelaire, Pater, Wilde, and others. He is largely remembered as a leading spirit in the Decadent movement, a defender of "art for art's sake". Includes a full bibliography. (Studies in the Fine Arts: Criticism, No 25) £14.95

9. [029280] McCormack, Jerusha Hull. The Man Who Was Dorian Gray. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000. First Edition. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Hard Cover. New / New. ISBN: 0312232780. Biography of the English 1890s poet, John Gray, on whom Oscar Wilde based the character Dorian Gray. Contains much about his partner Andre Raffalovich, Charles Rickets, Arthur Symons, Aubrey Beardsley, Ernest Dowson and Lord Alfred Douglas. "This is an important contribution to an understanding of Oscar Wilde and his contemporaries, and how their strange reading of the Roman Catholic faith touched and tortured so many of them." Frank McGuinness. £14.95

10. [025779] Murray, Douglas. Bosie: Biography of Lord Alfred Douglas. London: Sceptre, 2001. First Edition. 12mo - over 6¾" - 7¾" tall. Paperback. New ISBN: 0340767715. This new biography of Lord Alfred Douglas, the son of the Marquess of Queensbury and, most scandalously, the lover of Oscar Wilde, has attracted huge attention because of the age of the biographer. Douglas Murray began writing it at 17, and he is only 20 now. It is an astonishing achievement: mature, considered, fluently written and richly detailed. Bosie's youth was the epitome of the 1890s,"greenery-yallery" decadence, but unlike his lover and mentor, the brilliant, doomed Wilde, Bosie lived on until 1945, becoming increasingly religious, repentant about his past (as Wilde never was), and finally a recluse. On one key issue, however, Murray seems seriously off-message: he argues that Bosie was a major literary figure in his own right, and that the value of his poetry has been seriously underrated. "He was a poet not just of the 90s but one who would endure the 20th century and produce a poem that would echo as a work of searing faith and a testament to spiritual renewal." Er . no. The poem Murray alludes to is "In Excelsis", Bosie's riposte to Wilde's work "De Profundis". But it is tiresomely self-absorbed, antiquated, and unimaginative, a prolonged whinge about the lot of the misunderstood genius. Nevertheless, Bosie's story is still worth telling, even if his poetic reputation is not worth defending, and Murray tells it extremely well. £4.99

11. [000067] Nelson, James G.. Elkin Mathews: Publisher to Yeats, Joyce, Pound. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1989. First Edition. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Paperback. New ISBN: 0299122441. Biographical and bibliographical study of one of the most important English publishers of the 1890s. £4.49

12. [003137] Rossetti, Christina. New Poems Hitherto Unpublished or Uncollected. London: Macmillan and Co., 1896. First Thus. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Cloth. Good / No Jacket as Issued. Edited by William Michael Rossetti. Some rubbing to boards an minor damp stains to frontispiece. £20.00

13. [003136] Rossetti, Dante Gabriel. The Poetical Works. London: Ellis and Elvey, 1893. First Thus. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Cloth. Very Good / No Jacket as Issued. £25.00

14. [011215] Rossetti, Dante Gabriel. Poems and Translations 1850-1870 Together with the Prose Story Hand and Soul. London: Oxford University Press, 1913. First Thus. 12mo - over 6¾" - 7¾" tall. Cloth. Good / No Jacket. Rebound in strong library binding. £15.00

15. [018335] Seiler, Robert M. (Editor). The Book Beautiful: Walter Pater and the House of Macmillan. London: The Athlone Press, 1999. First Edition. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Hard Cover. New / New. ISBN: 0485115352. These letters comprise an important chapter in the life of Walter Pater's literary career recording in detail the relationship between this Victorian man of letters and his publishers, Macmillan and Co. £9.95

16. [028429] Sewell, Brocard. Footnote to the Nineties: A Memoir of John Gray and Andre Raffalovich. London: Cecil & Amelia Woolf, 1968. First Edition. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Cloth. New / New. Biography of the 1890s poet, John Gray, on whom Oscar Wilde based the character Dorian Gray. £25.00

17. [026195] Shepard, Leslie and Power, Albert (Editors). Dracula: Celebrating 100 Years: A Centenary Tribute to Bram Stoker's Novel. Dublin: Mentor Books, 1997. Second Printing. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Paperback. New ISBN: 094754884X. Celebrates the centenary of "Dracula," the famous book by Bram Stoker, and explores a wide range of aspects of the book at both popular and scholarly levels. Covering such topics as: Vampire supersition and belief in the supernatural; the creation of Bram Stoker’s masterpiece; the life and work of Bram Stoker himself; Dracula’s place in Gothic literature and Irish supernatural fiction; the first publication of an Irish language translation of ‘Dracula’s Guest’; Dublin locations associated with Bram Stoker; Dracula-related films; books for further reading. £9.95

18. [028888] Sigel, Lisa Z.. Governing Pleasures: Pornography and Social Change in England, 1815-1914. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2002. First Paperback Edition. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Paperback. New ISBN: 0813530024. A historical account of the production, distribution, and consumption of pornography in Great Britain from the early 19th century to the turn of the 20th century. It examines how pornography changed over time as a cultural and symbolic object in British society, and asks: What was considered pornographic? Who looked at pornography and read it? What sorts of messages did this medium transmit to both men and women? What was its thematic content, who controlled it, and how did these messages affect sexual and social dynamics? In contrast to recent ahistorical feminist assertions that pornography necessarily teaches men how to oppress women, this work views the use of pornography through the lens of historical and social change. In a careful analysis, it shows the cultural complexities of the medium and links Victorian pornography to other areas such as language, science, consumerism, and politics. Illustrated along with notes, bibliography and index. The best book on the subject since "The Other Victorians" by Stephen Marcus. £8.95

19. [023383] Stokes, John. In the Nineties. Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 1989. First Edition. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Hard Cover. New / New. ISBN: 0745006043. An excellent survey of the decadence of the 1890s featuring Oscar Wilde, Aubrey Beardsley, Arthur Symons, George Bernard Shaw and others including lesser known acrobats, aesthetes, convicts, music hall performers and mysterious suicides along with the chief obsessions of the time: criminality, sexuality, madness and morbidity. £12.95

20. [021965] Stuart, Dorothy Margaret. Christina Rossetti. London: Macmillan and Co., 1930. First Edition. 12mo - over 6¾" - 7¾" tall. Cloth. Ex-Library. Good / No Jacket. Biography of Christina Rossetti. Rebound in strong library binding. £20.00

21. [028082] Sturgis, Matthew. Aubrey Beardsley: A Biography. London: Harper Collins, 1999. First Paperback Edition. 12mo - over 6¾" - 7¾" tall. Paperback. New ISBN: 0006550568. When Aubrey Beardsley died in 1898, he was aged only 25 and had become one of the defining figures of the fin-de-siecle, a precocious draughtsman who redefined the limits of black-and-white art. b&w illustrations. £6.95

22. [028729] Summers, Montague. The Gothic Quest: A History of the Gothic Novel. London: Fortune Press, 1969. First Thus. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Cloth. New / No Jacket. ISBN: 0852400004. The definitive study of gothic literature from the 18th and 19th centuries, including a short history of the publishers and circulating libraries along with a chapter on Surrealism and the Gothic Novel. Author's covered include Charles Maturin, Matthew G. Lewis, Francis Lathom, Ann Radcliffe, and many others. Illustrated with 15 plates. Rare. £45.00

23. [000631] Swinburne, Algernon. Rosamund: Queen of the Lombards. London: Chatto & Windus, 1899. First Edition. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Cloth. Good / No Jacket as Issued. Play text. £20.00

24. [000592] Swinburne, Algernon. The Tale of Balen. London: Chatto & Windus, 1896. First Edition. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Cloth. Very Good / No Jacket. Spine faded, gilt top edge. £22.00

25. [026980] Thornburg, Mary K. Patterson. Monster in the Mirror: Gender and the Sentimental/ Gothic Myth in "Frankenstein". Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1987. First Edition. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Cloth. New / New. ISBN: 0835717984. Study of Mary Shelley's gothic masterpiece, Frankenstein. Includes superb bibliography. Studies in Speculative Fiction, No. 14. £14.95

26. [026071] Tompkins, J.M.S.. William Morris: An Approach to the Poetry. London: Cecil Woolf, 1988. First Edition. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Hard Cover. New / New. ISBN: 0900821841. William Morris (March 24, 1834 - October 3, 1896) was an English artist, writer, socialist and activist. He was one of the principal founders of the British arts and crafts movement, best known as a designer of wallpaper and patterned fabrics, a writer of poetry and fiction and a pioneer of the socialist movement in Britain, £19.95

27. [014038] Ure, Peter [Yeats,W.B.]. Yeats and Anglo-Irish Literature: Critical Essays. London: Liverpool University Press, 1974. First Edition. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Cloth. New / New. ISBN: 0853233225. Mainly on Yeats, but also on George Moore, Joseph Conrad and George Bernard Shaw. With a memoir of Peter Ure by Frank Kermode. Edited by C.J. Rawson. £14.95

28. [021790] Wood, Esther. Dante Rossetti and the Pre-Raphaelite Movement. London: Sampson Low, Marston & Co., 1894. First Edition. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Cloth. Ex-Library. Good / No Jacket. Rebound in strong linrary binding. £30.00

29. [008649] Yeats, W.B.. Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry. London: Walter Scott, 1888. First Edition. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Cloth. Good / No Jacket as Issued. Edited and Selected by W.B. Yeats. Original green cloth, paper label laid on spine, spine ends chipped, covers grubby and showing wear. (Wade 212). Rare. £275.00

III. POSTERS

FOOTLIGHTS Gallery & Gifts, 240 East Main Street, Ashland, OR 97520, USA, Phone & Fax: 541-488-5538 (Voice: 10 a.m.- 6 p.m. Pacific Time, 18:00-2:00 UTC) (Fax: 24 hours) E-mail: footlite@cdsnet.net specialises in theatre posters. No Wilde posters are currently offered but we note the following:

· BELLE EPOQUE 2004 Lincoln Center Theater production, Art by James McMullan 14x22" Cardstock $25;

· DANCE OF DEATH Ian McKellen and Helen Mirren star in Strindberg's classic 14x22" Cardstock $25;

· DRACULA 2004 Broadway production. Music by Frank Wildhorn 14x22" Cardstock $18;

· ELEPHANT MAN Revival with Billy Crudup,Kate Burton14x22"Cardstock $25 ONE ONLY;

· JEKYLL & HYDE 1997 Broadway Production 14x22" Cardstock $20;

· TURN OF THE SCREW Acting Company production. Jeffrey Hatcher adaptation. Art by Scott McKowen 13x19" Poster Stock $25.

· VINCENT AT BRIXTON 2003 Lincoln Center Production Play by Nicholas Wright about van Gogh in London. Directed by Richard Eyre; 14x22" Cardstock $20.

	The company AllPosters has a selection of Wilde-related (and of course other) posters, prints and photographs that it sells on-line. The image here is currently offered, Oscar Wilde, Irish Writer and Playwright 46 x 61 cm. 40,90 €
AllPosters also offer a number of Sarah Bernhardt posters and prints, of which we will be publishing one in each issue of THE OSCHOLARS. This month, Bernhardt by Manuel Orazi.

The site can be reached by clicking on the picture below, which is one of those that is also currently for sale.

Tite Street

We also draw readers’ attention to the International Poster Gallery, which specialises in Vintage posters, though the use of this term is rather imprecise.

IV. BOOKSHOPS & PUBLISHERS

	One of the very few London bookshops that was known to Wilde and survives to this day was Hatchard’s, and its general manager at the time, Arthur Humphreys, was a close friend of Constance Wilde’s. Wilde is one of the six customers named on their website. Hatchard’s is at 187 Piccadilly, and its website can be reached by clicking its picture to the left. Opening Hours: Monday to Saturday 9.30 - 7.00 p.m. , Sunday 12.00 - 6.00 p.m. Telephone 020 7439 9921
Galignani’s, 224 rue de Rivoli, is a few steps from the Hôtel Wagram (now no longer an hotel), where the Wildes stayed on their honeymoon. The oldest English bookshop on the Continent, one imagines that it has little changed to-day. The photograph is of Charles Jeancourt Galignani, the proprietor in Wilde’s day. Click the photograph for Galignani’s splendid website.
	Wilde also used the American bookshop in Paris, Brentano’s. This branch of the U.S. firm was opened by Arthur Brentano in 1895, at 37 Avenue de 1'Opera and extending through to Rue des Petits Champs (now rue Danielle Casanova), where it remains to-day; although its unprepossessing interior and inferior stock hardly suggests its distinguished past. It is no longer part of the Brentano’s chain.

We also like to commend the following bookshops because they salute Oscar Wilde. We are interested to know of others.
Oscar Wilde Buchhandlung und Versand at Alte Gasse 51, 60313 Frankfurt Tel.: 069/28 12 60 Fax: 069/297 75 42. Internet: http://www.oscar-wilde.de; e-mail: shop@oscar-wilde.de.
Dorian Bookstore, 802 Elm at Madison, Youngstown, Ohio 44505-2843. This, however, is no longer present at its Internet: http://alt.youngstown.org/dorian.html (although our search engine still locates it there) and perhaps a reader has news?
The Oscar Wilde Book Shop (15 Christopher Street, New York, NY 10014 E-mail: wildebooks@aol.com) now has a website at www.oscarwildebooks.com. This shop (in Greenwich Village) was founded in 1967, was the world's first gay bookshop. After many crises it is now owned and managed by Kim Brinster. It is possible to buy a wide range of products as well as books, on-line. The ‘T-shirt’ below has the words Oscar Wilde, New York City printed on it.
	Also specialising in the fin-de-siècle is Le Lien et le Ligne, the bookshop of M. Bruno Leclercq, which can be found by clicking its banner. This is more than an on-line bookseller, more of a site dedicated to its subject by an enthusiast. An interesting book currently offered is Catulle Mendès :Rapport à M. le Ministre de l'instruction publique et des Beaux-Arts sur le Mouvement Poétique Français de 1867 à 1900. Imprimerie Nationale, 1902, in-4, broché, 326 pp., couverture défraîchie, déchirure au second plat, dos cassé avec manque. Edition Originale. Précédé de réflexions sur la personnalité de l'esprit poétique de France suivi d'un dictionnaire bibliographique et critique et d'une nomenclature chronologique de la plupart des poètes français du XIXe siècle. 95€
We also recommend another French site, Edition Originale, which is that of the bookshop Le Feu Follet, 6, rue de l'Epée de Bois - 75005 Paris. Click its strangely attenuated colophon and then use the search facility for Wilde items, eighteen at time of writing.
Offstage Bookshop opened in 1982 as London's only specialist theatre and film bookshop. They stock an extensive range of technical and theoretical books in the performing arts and film. Their primary strength is the wide selection of titles stocked, and ability to find any book you need quickly and with no fuss. They now describe themselves as ‘firmly embedded’ in Treadwell’s Bookshop, in Covent Garden. (34 Tavistock Street, London WC2E 7PB). Treadwell’s itself is known for stocking books and arranging talks concerned with the writers of the decadence, with a leaning towards the occult.
Offstage has a website, www.offstagebooks.com which offers customers a worldwide mail order service. Offstage also provides offsite bookstalls at festivals and conferences for teachers and practitioners.
We draw your attention to The Peacock Mirror which offers on-line a selection of books, prints and other products focusing on Pre-Raphaelite, Symbolist and fin-de-siècle art. For a while off the screen, it has now returned in revived spirits. Click the image below for their website.
Last year we reproduced pictures of the calendars offered through this site. We showed three for 2008 in our October issue, and three more in November. Here are three more:

We here add the names of independent publishers who specialise in the books of the period. We plan gradually to increase this list and hope readers across the world will assist.

The Rivendale Press, our own publisher, gets special mention. Its list can be found at http://www.rivendalepress.com/index.html.

Elsewhere in THE OSCHOLARS we have mentioned the books being published by Callum James, Valancourt and Mondial. Their lists can be consulted at http://members.aol.com/callumjames1000/callumjamesbooks/home.html, http://www.valancourtbooks.com and http://www.mondial.com.

Tragara Press has a website currently (13th November 2007; 1st January 2008) under construction; we recommend the bibliography compiled by Steven Halliwell. See http://www.rivendalepress.com/tp.html.

Woodstock Books publishes literary reprints for the academic library market and for general readers and students. Notable is their list of Decadents, Symbolists, Anti-Decadents:
Poetry of the 1890s, a series chosen and introduced by R.K.R.Thornton and Ian Small.

V. EBAY

Ebay is an on-line auction house where many Wilde items are offered, from second-hand paperbacks to playbills to limited editions: 392 items when we looked for this issue, 382 for the previous one.  We have set up this link –––-> which will take you straight to ebay's Wilde pages.

This month we select for illustration the following, which were recently on offer:

	The Happy Prince & Other Tales Charles Robinson (illustrator). London: Duckworth & Co. Signed limited edition. 1913. folio, approx 15" x 12", bound in original publisher’s parchment with gilt page tops. Printed throughout on japon. 133 pp. with 12 tipped-in color plates, 5 full-page chapter illustrations, and many ornamental borders and vignettes. Sunning on spine and light to moderate wear and smudging on binding, otherwise free of defects. This limited edition of Oscar Wilde’s bittersweet fairy tales was the first to be illustrated by the noted British illustrator Charles Robinson (and his only signed limited edition). It is Nr. 50 of only 250 copies signed by the artist, with 12 mounted full-color plates and numerous in-text line drawings. There was a starting bid for this of US $2,999.00  (approximately £1,511.36)	Oscar Wilde In 15 Volumes Complete with Slipcase A Facsimile Reprint Edition of 1908, edited by Robert Ross - plus a facsimile of the 1st of Dorian Gray. Routledge/Thoemmes Press, London, 1993. 8vo. 15 Vols. Original Publisher's purple/blue cloth, gilt. A splendid set of the definitive edition of Oscar Wilde. Very rarely offered for sale - for the simple reason that the original price was over £1500, and few sold except to institutional libraries.
Oscar Wilde Charles E. Harrigan oil on canvas 18x24. There was a starting bid for this of $140.00 (approximately £70.55)		Constance Wilde This listing is a 32 pp pictorial covered board book with a dressed wolf wearing a sandwich board being led by Red Ridinghood. There was Once! Grandma's Stories by Mrs. Oscar Wilde, with color pictures by John Lawson; illustrated in sepia line with a young lady reading stories to four children, the titles above are decorated with nursery rhyme characters. Nister and Dutton. c1888. Color plates include Grandma's Story (frontispiece); Red Riding Hood; Puss in Boots; Little Bo-Peep; Cinderella; Old Mother Hubbard; The Three Bears; The Babes in the Woods; Jack the Giant Killer; and Three Little Kittens. Measures 9" x 7 1/2". Condition: inscribe on free-end paper. Surface wear and soiling. Text block attached to cover, but loose. One margin tear. Bid : US $105.00 (approximately £52.92)

Descriptions are those of the booksellers, and without any reason for disbelief, nonetheless THE OSCHOLARS cannot vouch for their accuracy (while sometimes appreciating their quaintness).

VI. FINALLY...

‘Blue Plaque’ mug, available from English Heritage at £9.99

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