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Poems

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$ 2 394
Auction dateClassic
06.10.2022 12:00UTC -04:00
Auctioneer
CHRISTIE'S
Event location
USA, New York
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The auction is completed. No bids can be placed anymore.
Archive
ID 813742
Lot 181 | Poems
Poems

Oscar Wilde, 1881

WILDE, Oscar (1854-1900). Poems. London: [Chiswick Press for] David Bogue, 1881.



The fine Birnbaum-Litchfield copy of the first edition. Wilde had been publishing poems in various periodicals since his school days, and he put together this revised and expanded collection of his poetry at the age of 27, as he was becoming known in London society as a great wit and aesthete. The longest poem in the book, and Wilde's favorite, is Charmides—a rather shocking sex comedy inspired by the work of Lucian of Samosata. Two of its stanzas were stricken from later editions and it ended Wilde’s friendship with Frank Miles, whose mother cut the poem out of the book. Mason 304.



Octavo. Half titles. Original gilt stiff vellum with prunus blossom design, top edge gilt, by Matthew Bell, uncut, one fold unopened (a little worn with a few stains, endpapers discolored as often). Custom box and slipcase. Provenance: Martin Birnbaum, 1878-1970, New York art dealer who wrote a biography of Wilde (bookplate) – Edward Hubert Litchfield, 1879-1949 (bookplate, his sale Parke-Bernet, New York, 3 December 1951, lot 991).

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