Oscar Wilde Meets William Morris

Greetings, Gate!

This was the week for Oscar Wilde and William Morris as the mail brought the following:

News From Nowhere, William Morris, Longmans, Green & Co. 1913. This is Morris's best known book, his vision of a agricultural, Socialist Utopia. This edition features an illustration by Walter Crane, Labour's May-Day.

The House of the Wolfings, William Morris, Roberts Brothers, 1890. William Morris pioneered the translation of Icelandinc and early Germanic sagas into modern English. I'm surprised and delighted by the extra-ordinary condition of this 115 year old book. It's in remarkably fine shape and shows that things were made to last back then. From the beautiful floral front end pages, the tipped in photo of Morris and the gilt on the top pages and on the cover boards ... beautiful. An added delight is the beautiful inscription done in that gorgeous copperplate style of the 19th Century!

Epigrams and Aphorisms by Oscar Wilde, John W. Luce & Co., 1905. Five years after his death and ten years after his trial and imprisonment for "gross indecency," during which Wilde's plays and books vanished from the public's sight, Oscar Wilde as Artist could safely be mentioned again. You can tell by looking at this edition that Luce & Co. were taking a gamble on publishing Wilde and that they went the safest way possible ... his epigrams and aphorisms. The volume they published is nice and without ostentation. The text is large, in 11 or 12 point type, and covers about two-thirds of the page. There's a lengthy introduction which makes the case for Wilde as Genius, too. What surprised me was the selections that were chosen ~ naturally there are the plays and Dorian Gray, but also selections from The Decay of Lying, The Soul of Man Under Socialism, Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young and The English Renaissance of Art. While it may not be complete, it's impressive for the time.

Salome, Oscar Wilde, John W. Luce & Co., 1906. A year later there was clearly a market for Wilde, especially his most scandalous play, the one act Salome. This lush edition features one of Aubrey Beardsley's illustrations stamped in gilt on the cover boards, and the thirteen Beardsley illustrations. A slim, Decadent edition.

Salome, Oscar Wilde, Three Sirens Press, 1930. I know very little about the Three Sirens Press. They seem to have specialized in reprinting works from the English Decadence of the 1890s ~ Wilde, Swinburne, J.K. Huysmans. This edition features a suede spine and purple cover boards. There's a reprint of the cover from the 1893 first edition, a reprint of the playbill of the first English production of 1905 and lengthy introduction by Robert Ross. All thirteen Beardsley illustrations are included. A very nice edition.