WILDE, Oscar - HARRIS, Frank.

£750 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

Oscar Wilde: His Life and Confessions. Second privately printed edition, presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, "To Arthur Humphreys, good friend and good fellow from the author, Frank Harris, with many pleasant memories. Berlin, 18.12.22".Humphreys (1865-1946) was a close friend of Oscar and Constance Wilde and published Oscariana in 1895. Humphreys was a writer and senior partner at Hatchards Books.The Irish-born journalist Frank Harris (1855-1931) led a dissolute life that some observers believed to have been redeemed only in his loyal support of the disgraced Wilde, as demonstrated by this biography, of "impressionistic value despite factual vagaries" (ODNB). George Bernard Shaw, in his appended letter to the author, Memories of Oscar Wilde, writes: "Now that you have written the best life of Oscar Wilde, let us have the best life of Frank Harris" (p. 32).The first private and trade editions were published two years earlier.

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