archives.nypl.org -- Oscar Wilde collection of papers (original) (raw)

This is a synthetic collection consisting of manuscripts, correspondence, a portrait photograph, and two undated notebooks. The manuscripts include holographs and holograph drafts of poems, notes on travel in Greece, portions of "The Picture of Dorian Gray," an emended manuscript of a play and other holograph materials. There is also an undated manuscript forgery of "Salome," believed to be in the hand of Fabian Lloyd. The manuscripts also include holographs by Max Beerbohm, one dated 1894, relating to the author. The legal documents include agreements between the author and the American Play Company. The correspondence includes letters, dating from 1880 to 1900, from the author to George Webb Appleton, Frank Harris, Arthur Humphreys, James Stanley Little, Aimee Lowther, E. W. Pratt, John Ruskin, James MacNeill Whistler, and others. There are also letters relating to the author, dating from [1881] to 1932, between various correspondents including Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas, Herman Finck, Theodore Watts-Dunton, Bernard Shaw, Cynthia Stockley, the literary agency James B. Pinker and son, and others. There are letters to Wilde from W. F. Morse, Marie Prescott, John Ruskin, and A. P. Watt and son, dating from 1882 to 1891.

The Oscar Wilde collection of papers are arranged in three series: