Oscar Wilde and the Fin de siècle
The Clark Library’s collection of materials by and relating to Oscar Wilde and his circle is the most comprehensive in the world. Based on Clark’s extensive early purchases at the sale of John B. Stetson’s library in 1920 and from a London bookseller, Dulau & Co., whose Wilde catalogue issued in 1928 brought together material from Wilde’s son Vyvyan, Robert Ross, and Christopher Millard (the Wilde bibliographer), the holdings include extensive runs of correspondence and manuscripts, as well as a largely complete collection of printed editions and translations of Wilde’s works. Photographs, original portraits, caricatures, playbills, and news clippings provide a depth of research material which is unrivalled. The English 1890s in general are well documented in books and archival materials, including periodicals, an archive concerning the publisher John Lane, most of W.B. Yeats’s works, caricatures by Max Beerbohm, and books and archives for writers such as George Moore, Ada Leverson, George Egerton, Dollie Radford, and others. A collection of letters addressed to the editor John Stuart Verschoyle includes correspondence from many famous writers such as Henry James, Swinburne and others. The Clark also collects the work of Pierre Louÿs, the dedicatee of Wilde’s play Salomé.
For information on searching the collection, click here.
