Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Oscar Wilde Collection of John B. Stetson, Jr., Elkins Park, Pa: To Be Sold Friday Afternoon and Evening, April 23, at 2. 30 and 8. 15 O'clock
It will be obvious to readers of this catalogue that this is the greatest Collection of the Works of Oscar Wilde that has ever been formed. Indeed, it is unlikely that such a complete and important collection of manuscripts and books by and relating to a single author has ever before been brought together. There are original manuscripts, many of them complete, of nearly all of the writings of Oscar Wilde; first editions and presentation copies of all his published works; long series of autograph letters to the men and women intimately identified with his life; letters to him from well-known men and women of the period, and a long series of books relating to his life and works. It is at once a collector's and a student's library and contains the material for a detailed history of the life and times of Oscar Wilde that has yet to be written, not to supersede but as a supplement to that great piece of literary portraiture, "Oscar Wilde: His Life and Confessions" by Frank Harris. It was the owner's intention to publish a series of volumes founded on this Collection and it is because the pressure of other interests made this impossible that he decided to offer it for sale.
It is, of course, impossible to predict the position of Oscar Wilde in the literary history of the future, but there can hardly be any question about the increasing interest in his life and works.
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