WILDE, Oscar (1854-1900). 16 Tite Street, Chelsea: Catalogue of the Library of Valuable Books, Pictures ... Household Furniture ... and numerous Effects: which will be sold by auction, by Mr. Bullock, on the premises, on Wednesday, April 24th, 1895, at one o'clock. London: [1895]. 8° (224 x 145mm). 16pp. (light soiling). Unbound as issued, later green cloth folder, lettered in gilt. OF EXTREME RARITY, ONE OF ONLY 4 KNOWN COPIES (the others are in the Eccles Collection, now at the BL, the Clark Library, and a private collection). The auction of his effects occured after Wilde had unsuccessfully sued Lord Queensberry for slander, and had in turn been tried and sentenced to two years hard labour for indecency. Queensberry swiftly obtained a judgment over Wilde's property to recover legal costs and forced a sale which caused the author further public humiliation. Of 246 lots, the first 114 consisted of 2000 books. Wilde's interest in the Elizabethan and Jacobean dramatists and the romantic poets emerges strongly. The catalogue includes his own limited editions and those of William Morris but there was no space for presentation inscriptions by authors like Morris, Verlaine, Swinburne, Whitman, and Victor Hugo in the brief entries. Darwin's Origin of Species and Descent of Man form a separate lot. He was probably a more avid reader of Edgar Allan Poe, two sets of his works being listed. Sets of Dumas and Zola appear as separate lots, but the Newgate Calendar shares a place with the works of Cicero, and most of Wilde's vast collection of French novels is parcelled into ten lots of between 40 and 100 vols. each -- with no mention of the authors. The 22 lots of pictures included Harper Pennington's portrait of Wilde, art work by Wilde himself, and portraits of Ellen Terry and Sarah Bernhardt Blackwood's magazine recorded that: 'the last lot catalogued was a rabbit hutch, which went for a couple of shillings. The sale was carried on amidst a scene of the greatest disorder, the police eventually being called in to eject the disturbers. Most of the lots were knocked down at comparatively small sums; but several of the owner's personal belongings were secured by sympathising friends and eventually restored to him' (see Mason, p. 8).
WILDE, Oscar (1854-1900). 16 Tite Street, Chelsea: Catalogue of the Library of Valuable Books, Pictures ... Household Furniture ... and numerous Effects: which will be sold by auction, by Mr. Bullock, on the premises, on Wednesday, April 24th, 1895, at one o'clock. London: [1895]. 8° (224 x 145mm). 16pp. (light soiling). Unbound as issued, later green cloth folder, lettered in gilt. OF EXTREME RARITY, ONE OF ONLY 4 KNOWN COPIES (the others are in the Eccles Collection, now at the BL, the Clark Library, and a private collection). The auction of his effects occured after Wilde had unsuccessfully sued Lord Queensberry for slander, and had in turn been tried and sentenced to two years hard labour for indecency. Queensberry swiftly obtained a judgment over Wilde's property to recover legal costs and forced a sale which caused the author further public humiliation. Of 246 lots, the first 114 consisted of 2000 books. Wilde's interest in the Elizabethan and Jacobean dramatists and the romantic poets emerges strongly. The catalogue includes his own limited editions and those of William Morris but there was no space for presentation inscriptions by authors like Morris, Verlaine, Swinburne, Whitman, and Victor Hugo in the brief entries. Darwin's Origin of Species and Descent of Man form a separate lot. He was probably a more avid reader of Edgar Allan Poe, two sets of his works being listed. Sets of Dumas and Zola appear as separate lots, but the Newgate Calendar shares a place with the works of Cicero, and most of Wilde's vast collection of French novels is parcelled into ten lots of between 40 and 100 vols. each -- with no mention of the authors. The 22 lots of pictures included Harper Pennington's portrait of Wilde, art work by Wilde himself, and portraits of Ellen Terry and Sarah Bernhardt Blackwood's magazine recorded that: 'the last lot catalogued was a rabbit hutch, which went for a couple of shillings. The sale was carried on amidst a scene of the greatest disorder, the police eventually being called in to eject the disturbers. Most of the lots were knocked down at comparatively small sums; but several of the owner's personal belongings were secured by sympathising friends and eventually restored to him' (see Mason, p. 8).
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.jpg "Source: Christie's")
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
