Last Letters of Oscar Wilde to Robert Ross, 1898-1900.

A very interesting and rare Wilde item, transcribed by Montgomery Hyde at a time when the full contents of these letters were almost certainly only available or circulating in just a few copies (perhaps no more than two).

Preparatory Note by H. Montgomery Hyde 'The following 63 letters and post-cards were the last written by Oscar Wilde to his friend and literary executor, Robert Ross. They cover the period from May, 1898 to November, 1900, thus completing the series begun by Wilde in Reading Gaol and partly published in De Profundis (1908 1.) and continued after his release in France and Italy under the later published titles of After Reading (1921) 2. and After Berneval (1922) 3. The letters were transcribed by me after copies made by Walter Ledger, the well known Wilde collector, from a type-written transcript of the originals which had previously been prepared by Stuart Mason, Wilde's 4. Ross to whom the originals were addressed, left them to Vyvyan Holland, Wilde's surviving son, and on the latter's instructions they were put up for auction, after Ross's death, in the Dulau sale rooms in London in 1929, when they were purchased by the late Mr. Gabriel Wells acting on behalf of William Andrews Clark. They are now in the Clark Memorial Library in Los Angeles, California. Extracts from this correspondence appeared in the Dulau Sales Catalogue, but the expurgation to which they had been subjected was so drastic as to render most of the personal references unintelligible. In the complete text given here the omissions are shown in red. Some of the letters have also been published in a German translation by Dr. Max Mayerfield, Oscar Wilde, Letze Briefs (1925), but here again the omissions, though less than in the Dulau Catalogue, are by no means inconsiderable . . . , 1. Edited by Robert Ross. 2. Anonymously edited by Stuart Mason. 3. Edited by More Adey. 4. The Ledger Version is now in the Robert Ross memorial Collection in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. 5. One letter, dated April 16, 1900, had been previously published in one part by Robert Ross in his Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde (1914). 6. Dulau Catalogue at pp. 16-17'.

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), was convicted of gross indecency for consensual homosexual acts in one of the first celebrity trials and imprisoned 25 May 1895-19 May 1897. Wilde left England for France on the evening of his release, and developed meningitis in 1900 whilst living in Paris Robert Ross (1869-1918). was as an ex-art editor at the Morning Post, and his role as literary godfather was of primary importance to the Sitwells. Osbert had met Robert Ross before the First World War, and during the war years he got to know him well. Ross's bachelor rooms at 40 Half Moon Street are nostalgically recalled in 'Noble Essences' and it was through Ross that the Sitwells met amongst others, Edmund Gosse, Arnold Bennet, Siegfried Sassoon Wilfred Owen and Reginald 'Reggie' Turner. 'Reggie' was one of the few friends who remained loyal to Oscar Wilde and supported him after his release from prison. Osbert Sitwell put a comic version of his friend Reggie Turner as 'Algy Braithwaite,' into his verses 'On the Continent', 'Reggie' left England to live in Florence, concerned that some of the hostility toward Wilde might continue to be directed towards him. Oscar Wilde's correspondence to Reggie is part of the Lady Eccles Collection bequeathed to the British Library. Harford Montgomery Hyde (1907-1989) was a barrister, politician and author and a significant figure in the legalisation of homosexuality. He became a Member of Parliament in 1950 and during that decade was a vocal supporter of homosexual law reform. However, when the Wolfenden Report ('The Report of the Departmental Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution') was introduced into the House of Commons in 1958, he was deselected by his party, the Ulster unionists, for supporting its implementation. Catalogue Note The Robert Ross Memorial Collection although bequeathed to the College it was, for many years, housed in the Bodleian Library. In 2017 the collection was repatriated and is now housed in the Library of University College, Oxford.