Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime. A Study of Duty.

WILDE, Oscar.

$975.00

Item Number: 140581

[London]: Privately Printed, 1904.

First separate edition of Wilde’s classic collection of of mystery tales; a pirated edition produced by Leonard Smithers. Octavo, bound in three quarter morocco over marbled boards with gilt titles to the spine, original wrappers bound in. One of 300 numbered copies, this is number 125. In fine condition. A very rare Wilde title.

Wilde’s “theme is not, as is often supposed, art’s divorce from life, but its inescapable arraignment by experience. His creative works almost always end in unmasking. The hand that adjusts the green carnation suddenly shakes an admonitory finger. While the ultimate virtue in Wilde’s essays is in make-believe, the denouement of his dramas and narratives is that masks have to go. We must acknowledge what we are. Wilde at least was keen to do so. Though he offered himself as the apostle of pleasure, his created world contains much pain” (Ellmann, xvi).