Finding Aid for the Oscar Wilde and his Literary Circle Collection: Forgeries MS. Wilde Forgeries
Finding aid prepared by Finding aid created by Rebecca Fenning.
William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
© 2009
2520 Cimarron Street
Los Angeles, CA, 90018
(323) 731-8529
rfenning@humnet.ucla.edu
Title: Oscar Wilde and his Literary Circle Collection: Forgeries,
Identifier/Call Number: MS. Wilde Forgeries
Contributing Institution:
William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
Language of Material:
English
Physical Description:
1.0 Linear feet
Date (inclusive): 1887-1900
Abstract: This finding aid describes manuscript items that are confirmed or suggested forgeries of Oscar Wilde's work and correspondence.
creator:
William Andrews Clark Memorial Library.
William Andrews Clark, Jr. acquired the nucleus of the Clark Library's Oscar Wilde collection from Dulau and Company, London,
in 1929. Most of the Dulau material had been in the possession of Robert B. Ross (Oscar Wilde's literary executor), Christopher
S. Millard (a.k.a. Stuart Mason, the Wilde bibliographer), and Vyvyan B. Holland (Wilde's only surviving son). Since 1929,
the Clark Library has steadily purchased important new material and in the year 2000, the collection was estimated to contain
over 65,000 items.
Collection is open for research.
Copyright has not been assigned to the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library. All requests for permission to publish or quote
from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Librarian. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the William
Andrews Clark Memorial Library as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the
copyright holder, which must also be obtained.
For additional copyright information related to Oscar Wilde, contact Merlin Holland (email: merlin.holland[at]wanadoo.fr).
Microfilm copies of portions of the collection are available for patron use.
[Identification of item, subseries and series], Oscar Wilde and his Literary Circle Collection: Forgeries. Williams Andrews
Clark Memorial Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
Many of the manuscript and print materials described within this finding aid have also been cataloged individually. Those
individual records for print materials are available via the UCLA Library's online catalog, while the records for manuscript
materials are accessible only through a physical card catalog located at the Clark.
In 1957, a printed catalog of all Wilde-related works then owned by the Clark Library (approximately 2900 items) was compiled
by John Charles Finzi and published as
Oscar Wilde and his Literary Circle by the University of California Press. Over the course of the next four decades, many new Clark acquisitions were added to
the collection and approximately one-third of the collection was microfilmed at least once.
In 2000, the first version of the Oscar Wilde and his Literary Circle online finding aid, which described
all archival materials in the Clark collections related to Wilde and his circle was written and encoded in EAD by John Howard
Fowler. In 2009, this original finding aid was separated into several parts, edited and re-encoded by Rebecca Fenning in order
to make its very large size (over 1000 pages) and scope more manageable for researchers. Instead of one guide describing the
entire collection, there are now 5 more easily navigated guides devoted to different components of the collection:
Correspondence,
Manuscripts and Miscellaneous Materials,
Wildeiana,
Forgeries and the
James Lewis May Papers.
Oscar Wilde was born Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde in Dublin, Ireland, October 16, 1854. He attended Trinity College
and Magdalen College, Oxford, winning the Newdigate prize in 1878 for the poem
Ravenna. He subsequently established himself in London society as a champion of the new Aesthetic movement, advocating "art for art's
sake," and publishing reviews and his
Poems (1881). After being satirized (and made famous) as Bunthorne, the fleshly aesthetic poet in Gilbert and Sullivan's
Patience, he made a year-long lecture tour of the United States, speaking on literature and the decorative arts. After his return
to London, he married Constance Lloyd in 1884; they had two sons, Cyril and Vyvyan Holland. In 1891 he met and began a love
affair with the handsome but temperamental poet, Lord Alfred Douglas.
The 1890s saw both Wilde's greatest literary triumphs and his tragic downfall. His only novel,
The Picture of Dorian Gray, appeared in 1891. The most famous of his witty social comedies--
Lady Windermere's Fan (1892),
A Woman of No Importance (1893),
An Ideal Husband (1895), and
The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)--were written and produced for the London stage. But in 1895, after becoming entangled in an unsuccessful libel suit
against Douglas's father, Wilde was prosecuted for homosexuality. Convicted, he was sentenced to two years' hard labor.
While in prison, Wilde wrote
De Profundis, a letter to Douglas, and after his release, he published the long poem,
The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898). But despite these final works, his career was essentially over. Bankrupt and in exile, his health ruined in prison,
he died in Paris in 1900.
The Forgeries finding aid describes manuscript items in the Clark Library collection that have been confirmed as forgeries,
or which are strongly suspected of being forgeries of Oscar Wilde's work. The bulk of these forgeries were created by Fabian
Lloyd, Oscar Wilde's nephew by marriage.
This collection is organized by the name of the party responsible for the forged documents described.
Separately Described Materials
The following finding aids represent other segments of the Oscar Wilde collection at the Clark Library:
- Oscar Wilde and his Literary Circle Collection : Wildeiana, 1858-1998, undated. MS. Wildeiana.
Note
Available via the Online Archive of California. - Oscar Wilde and his Literary Circle Collection : Manuscripts and Miscellaneous Materials, 1819-1995. MS. Wilde.
Note
Available via the Online Archive of California. - Oscar Wilde and his Literary Circle Collection : Correspondence, 1819, 1849-1957, 1962. MS. Wilde.
Note
Available via the Online Archive of California.
The Clark Library also holds the following collections related to or created by other members of Wilde's extended circle:
- James Lewis May Papers, 1814-1963. MS.1976.013.
Note
Finding aid available via the Online Archive of California. - Robert Harborough Sherard Collection, 1881-1987. MS.1997.004 and MS.1997.005.
Note
Finding aid available via the Online Archive of California. - John Stuart Verschoyle Papers, 1884-1914. MS.2007.001.
Note
Finding aid available via the Online Archive of California.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Cravan, Arthur, 1887-1920?
Wilde, Oscar, 1854-1900--Forgeries
Wilde, Oscar, 1854-1900
Literary forgeries and mystifications
Lloyd, Fabian Avenarius, 1887-1920?
Mixed materials W6721M C697 1887-1900
Collection of manuscript letters, essays, poems, and plays, accompanied by dealers' and experts' correspondence regarding these particular manuscripts. 1887-1900
General Physical Description note: 80 items. In orange leather and grey buckram box. 12-1/2 x 10 x 4-1/4 in. These are all forgeries by Fabian Lloyd [nephew
of Constance Lloyd Wilde, by her brother,
Otho Lloyd Holland ]. Fabian Lloyd is also known as Dorian Hope, Sebastian Hope, B. Holland, and Arthur Cravan. Manuscript works included in
this collection:
A Woman of No Importance,
The Importance of Being Earnest,
Mr. Swinburne's Poems and Ballads,
The Sphinx without a Secret,
Lord Savile's Crime,
The Nightingale and the Rose,
The Ballad of Reading Gaol,
The Decay of Lying, and drafts of poems.
Also: ten personal letters supposedly from Oscar Wilde. Photocopy masters of selected items shelved adjacent.
Also: ten personal letters supposedly from Oscar Wilde. Photocopy masters of selected items shelved adjacent.
Wilde 21-2
W6721M C697 1887 1900 Boxed
Unknown person. Supposed letters by Oscar Wilde to Leonard Charles Smithers, 1861-1909 . 1880-1900
Mixed materials 72, Folder 4
Shelfmark 74, Folder 5
Shelfmark 77, Folder 3
Shelfmark 77, Folder 3
Shelfmark 77, Folder 3
Shelfmark 77, Folder 3
Shelfmark 77, Folder 3
Shelfmark 74, Folder 3
Letter. 1900
Shelfmark 77, Folder 3