BIB_ID
240841
Accession number
MA 6153
Creator
Wilde, Oscar, 1854-1900.
Display Date
[postmark 1899 Mar. 20].
Credit line
Purchase on the Gordon N. Ray Fund, 2004.
Description
1 item (8 p.) ; 15.4 cm.
Notes
At the top of the letter Wilde has written "From Sebastian Melmoth."
The recipient was a seventeen-year-old student at Radley College, Abingdon, England, who initiated a correspondence with Wilde, whom he never met. Eight letters from Wilde to Wilkinson survive, dated 1898-1900. Wilkinson later published under the name Louis Marlow.
With envelope addressed to Wilkinson at Radley College.
The recipient was a seventeen-year-old student at Radley College, Abingdon, England, who initiated a correspondence with Wilde, whom he never met. Eight letters from Wilde to Wilkinson survive, dated 1898-1900. Wilkinson later published under the name Louis Marlow.
With envelope addressed to Wilkinson at Radley College.
Provenance
In the collection of Oliver Wilkinson until at least 2000.
Summary
Saying he is glad Wilkinson has received and enjoyed a copy of the play [The Importance of Being Earnest], describing the area in Switzerland where he is staying and insulting the Swiss people ("they are shapeless, colourless: grey of texture, and without form... here they are like cave-men: no impulse born of the splendour of physical perfection has ever filled them: their cattle have more expression"); saying he is glad Wilkinson is enjoying Shakespeare's sonnets and mentioning his work "The Portrait of Mr. W.H.," and praising Edward FitzGerald's translation of Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat.
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