WILDE, Oscar (1854-1900)

Lot 152
13.02.2025 00:00UTC +00:00
Classic
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
Buyer Premiumsee on Website%
ID 1362947
Lot 152 | WILDE, Oscar (1854-1900)
Estimate value
£ 20 000 – 30 000
WILDE, Oscar (1854-1900)
Autograph manuscripts drafts for 17 epigrams on art, morality, life and education, n.p., n.d. [c.1888]
In pencil and pen, on 3½ pages, 180 x 114mm, bifolium, and one page, 230 x 180mm, those in ink with cancellations and emendations; tipped into an album, full blue morocco, gilt by Sangorski & Sutcliffe. Provenance: Vyvyan Holland (1886-1967, Wilde's second son; autograph note signed, 19 November 1959, and typed letter signed, 11 May 1960, 'Yes, those two sheets of epigrams were once mine. I cannot quite remember the circumstances in which they came into Sims's possession'); Dr Noël J. Cortes (1907-1975; bookplate); Barry Humphries (1934-2023; bookplate).

Autograph drafts for 17 epigrams, including 'The address of every poet is the moon ... Only the weak resist temptations ... One should live as if there was no death ... Death is the only important event in the lives of the middle classes ... The object of art is not simple truth but complex beauty ... Education is an admirable thing. But it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught'.

These rough drafts for epigrams provide a significant insight into Wilde's creative method: although the epigrams are evidently created in isolation, a number were reused in a more extensive context. For example, 'the object of art is not simple truth but complex beauty' appears in Wilde's essay 'The Decay of Lying', first published in the January 1889 issue of The Nineteenth Century; 'Education is an admirable thing ...' appears in the essay 'The Critic as Artist', first published in his collection Intentions on 1 May 1891; 'Only the weak resist temptations' was adapted as 'I can resist anything except temptation' in Lady Windermere's Fan (1892). A number of the present epigrams are however apparently unpublished.
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