WILDE, Oscar O'Flahertie Wills (1864-1900). Salom é. Drame en un acte. Paris: Paul Schmidt for Librairie de l'Art Indépendant and Elkin Mathews, London, 1893.
WILDE, Oscar O'Flahertie Wills (1864-1900). Salom é. Drame en un acte. Paris: Paul Schmidt for Librairie de l'Art Indépendant and Elkin Mathews, London, 1893. 8º (195 x 138mm). Device by Félicien Rops on title and colophon. Contemporary blue half morocco and marbled boards, uncut (a little rubbed, original wrappers not bound in). Provenance : presentation copy to an unnamed woman, most probably Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1923; inscribed in the author's hand on verso of second blank: 'à la plus / charmante / des princesses, / hommage de l'auteur / Paris / [18]93'). FIRST EDITION, ONE OF 50 COPIES ON VAN GELDER PAPER, PRESENTATION COPY TO [?]SARAH BERNHARDT. The 1923 sale catalogue of the actress’s library does not include this inscribed copy. Nevertheless, she is the most likely recipient. Wilde had publicly worshipped her -- and he had wanted her to play the role of Princess Salomé. When she arrived at Folkestone in the summer of 1879, he was there to welcome her, strewing an armful of lilies at her feet and cheering loudly. At the first night of Ph èdre on 2 June 1879 Berhardt made him realise ‘the sweetness of the music of Racine’. He associated her Lady Macbeth with the pleasure of his visits to Paris in the mid 1880s, proclaiming: ‘It is not easy to exhaust the message of Paris, especially when Sarah Bernhardt is playing. I have seen Macbeth over and over again’. In 1883 her performance in Sardou’s F édora was so impressive that Jules Lemaître described her as ‘eminently a Russian Princess’ and Wilde addressed a sonnet to her. Between February 1891 and September 1893 Bernhardt undertook a remarkable world tour which started in New York, and eventually took her back to London; she hired the Royal English Opera House for the summer season of 1892. Accounts of how she came to take on the role of Salomé differ in detail but according to Robert Ross: ‘Madame Bernhardt happened to say she wished Wilde could write a play for her; he replied in jest that he had done so. She insisted on seeing the manuscript, and decided on its immediate production’ (quoted in Complete Works V, p. 467). Wilde's grateful inscription to a copy (no. 10) of the 1892 edition of his Poems quoted the play's first line, 'A Sarah Bernhardt / Hommage / d'Oscar Wilde / ... / "Comme la Princesse Salomé est belle ce soir!" / Londres. / 92'. Unfortunately for writer and performer, the biblical drama was banned by the Lord Chamberlain in late June, when rehearsals were already in full swing; it became a non-event. After incurring months of delay the first edition appeared on 22 February, 1893. A lukewarm review in the Times made Wilde declare: 'The fact that the greatest tragic actress of any stage now living saw in my play such beauty that she was anxious to produce it, to take herself the part of the heroine, to lend the entire poem the glamour of her personality ... will always be a source of pride and pleasure to me, and I look forward with delight to seeing Mme. Bernhardt present my play in Paris' ( Letters pp.335-36). The play’s modern editor notes ‘it is a striking fact how exactly suited Bernhardt was for the role of Salomé. Her age was not a question, despite her being close to fifty.’ At a period when so many plays were about princesses (Maeterlinck’s first play was La Princesse Maleine ), the word ‘princess’ in Wilde's inscription was surely synonomous with ‘leading actress’. Bernhardt was the most charming of princesses because she was the best of actresses, and the book is presented to her as the ideal, the only Salomé who might yet appear in and produce his play. Even the word 'charmante' may consciously echo Herod's words, 'elle est charmante, n'est-ce pas?' (p. 70). Knowing exactly when in 1893 Wilde would have presented the book is the main difficulty. He was in Paris in May where he 'stayed for a few days at the Hôtel des Deux-Mondes in the avenue de l'Opéra'. Although Bernhardt was then touring the provincial towns of France and Spain, it is poss
WILDE, Oscar O'Flahertie Wills (1864-1900). Salom é. Drame en un acte. Paris: Paul Schmidt for Librairie de l'Art Indépendant and Elkin Mathews, London, 1893.
WILDE, Oscar O'Flahertie Wills (1864-1900). Salom é. Drame en un acte. Paris: Paul Schmidt for Librairie de l'Art Indépendant and Elkin Mathews, London, 1893. 8º (195 x 138mm). Device by Félicien Rops on title and colophon. Contemporary blue half morocco and marbled boards, uncut (a little rubbed, original wrappers not bound in). Provenance : presentation copy to an unnamed woman, most probably Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1923; inscribed in the author's hand on verso of second blank: 'à la plus / charmante / des princesses, / hommage de l'auteur / Paris / [18]93'). FIRST EDITION, ONE OF 50 COPIES ON VAN GELDER PAPER, PRESENTATION COPY TO [?]SARAH BERNHARDT. The 1923 sale catalogue of the actress’s library does not include this inscribed copy. Nevertheless, she is the most likely recipient. Wilde had publicly worshipped her -- and he had wanted her to play the role of Princess Salomé. When she arrived at Folkestone in the summer of 1879, he was there to welcome her, strewing an armful of lilies at her feet and cheering loudly. At the first night of Ph èdre on 2 June 1879 Berhardt made him realise ‘the sweetness of the music of Racine’. He associated her Lady Macbeth with the pleasure of his visits to Paris in the mid 1880s, proclaiming: ‘It is not easy to exhaust the message of Paris, especially when Sarah Bernhardt is playing. I have seen Macbeth over and over again’. In 1883 her performance in Sardou’s F édora was so impressive that Jules Lemaître described her as ‘eminently a Russian Princess’ and Wilde addressed a sonnet to her. Between February 1891 and September 1893 Bernhardt undertook a remarkable world tour which started in New York, and eventually took her back to London; she hired the Royal English Opera House for the summer season of 1892. Accounts of how she came to take on the role of Salomé differ in detail but according to Robert Ross: ‘Madame Bernhardt happened to say she wished Wilde could write a play for her; he replied in jest that he had done so. She insisted on seeing the manuscript, and decided on its immediate production’ (quoted in Complete Works V, p. 467). Wilde's grateful inscription to a copy (no. 10) of the 1892 edition of his Poems quoted the play's first line, 'A Sarah Bernhardt / Hommage / d'Oscar Wilde / ... / "Comme la Princesse Salomé est belle ce soir!" / Londres. / 92'. Unfortunately for writer and performer, the biblical drama was banned by the Lord Chamberlain in late June, when rehearsals were already in full swing; it became a non-event. After incurring months of delay the first edition appeared on 22 February, 1893. A lukewarm review in the Times made Wilde declare: 'The fact that the greatest tragic actress of any stage now living saw in my play such beauty that she was anxious to produce it, to take herself the part of the heroine, to lend the entire poem the glamour of her personality ... will always be a source of pride and pleasure to me, and I look forward with delight to seeing Mme. Bernhardt present my play in Paris' ( Letters pp.335-36). The play’s modern editor notes ‘it is a striking fact how exactly suited Bernhardt was for the role of Salomé. Her age was not a question, despite her being close to fifty.’ At a period when so many plays were about princesses (Maeterlinck’s first play was La Princesse Maleine ), the word ‘princess’ in Wilde's inscription was surely synonomous with ‘leading actress’. Bernhardt was the most charming of princesses because she was the best of actresses, and the book is presented to her as the ideal, the only Salomé who might yet appear in and produce his play. Even the word 'charmante' may consciously echo Herod's words, 'elle est charmante, n'est-ce pas?' (p. 70). Knowing exactly when in 1893 Wilde would have presented the book is the main difficulty. He was in Paris in May where he 'stayed for a few days at the Hôtel des Deux-Mondes in the avenue de l'Opéra'. Although Bernhardt was then touring the provincial towns of France and Spain, it is poss
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