A report on Wilde and period-related objects for sale.

No 50: May / June 2009

__________

For the Table of Contents, click   | To hub page | To THE OSCHOLARS home page

Readers are invited to advertise (free) for items sought or for sale / exchange

Please mention THE OSCHOLARS if ordering or inquiring, as this will help keep us on mailing lists.

We hope this page will be an early port of call for those offering or seeking books on Wilde and the fin-de-siècle. It will, we also hope, serve to chart fluctuating prices. Obviously it can never replace such facilities as Abe or Amazon, but it should offer background to our other pages. Booksellers are welcome to contact us at oscholars@gmail.com with lists of their 1890s material; or with hyperlinks to the relevant section of their own on-line catalogues.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. Posters		III. Publishers
II. Bookshops		IV. Ebay
		V. Endpiece

I. POSTERS

Footlights Gallery & Gifts specialises in theatre posters, 240 East Main Street, Ashland, OR 97520, USA, Phone & Fax: 541-488-5538 (Voice: 10 a.m.- 6 p.m. Pacific Time, 18:00-2:00 UTC) (Fax: 24 hours) E-mail: footlite@cdsnet.net. We have over many issues shown here posters that they sell with a fin-de-siècle theme, but for this issue as with or last one, we were unable to raise their website as usual.

The company AllPosters has a selection of Wilde-related (and other) posters, prints and photographs that it sells on-line.

Above : three reproductions of contemporary pictures ; below: a poster of the Dublin statue and a fridge magnet with a very dubious ascription to Wilde

AllPosters also offer a number of Sarah Bernhardt posters and prints, of which we will be showing one in each issue of THE OSCHOLARS. This time, a portrait of Bernhardt by Manuel Orazi.

Here too is a poster of Catulle Mendès:

The AllPosters site can be reached by clicking on the picture below, which is one of those that is also currently for sale.

Tite Street

We also draw readers’ attention to the International Poster Gallery, which specialises in Vintage posters, though the use of this term is rather imprecise. We here select four, apologising for the quality of reproduction. They can be seen much more clearly on the International Poster Gallery’s website (click the banner).

Artist Unknown : The Lakeside Press - May 1895

Wallace, James Leslie : The Lakeside Press - June 1895

Clarys, Alexandre : Spa, Belgium, 1892

Cheret, Jules : La Loie Fuller - Folies Bergere, 1893

MovieGoods describes itself as ‘the place for posters and other items from all the hottest new movies’, and also sells theatre posters and playbills. Here is one:

II. BOOKSHOPS & PUBLISHERS

One of the very few London bookshops that was known to Wilde and survives to this day was Hatchard’s, and its general manager at the time, Arthur Humphreys, was a close friend of Constance Wilde’s. Wilde is one of the six customers named on their website. Hatchard’s is at 187 Piccadilly, and its website can be reached by clicking its picture to the left. Opening Hours: Monday to Saturday 9.30 - 7.00 p.m., Sunday 12.00 - 6.00 p.m. Telephone 020 7439 9921

Galignani’s, 224 rue de Rivoli, is a few steps from the Hôtel Wagram (now no longer an hotel), where the Wildes stayed on their honeymoon. The oldest English bookshop on the Continent, one imagines that it has changed little to-day. The photograph is of Charles Jeancourt Galignani, the proprietor in Wilde’s day. Click the photograph for Galignani’s splendid website.

Wilde also used the American bookshop in Paris, Brentano’s. This branch of the U.S. firm was opened by Arthur Brentano in 1895, at 37 Avenue de 1'Opera and extending through to rue des Petits Champs (now rue Danielle Casanova), where it remains to-day; although its unprepossessing interior and inferior stock hardly suggests its distinguished past. It is no longer part of the Brentano’s chain.

We also like to commend the following bookshops because they salute Oscar Wilde. We are interested to know of others.

Oscar Wilde Buchhandlung und Versand at Alte Gasse 51, 60313 Frankfurt Tel.: 069/28 12 60 Fax: 069/297 75 42. Internet: http://www.oscar-wilde.de; e-mail: shop@oscar-wilde.de.

Dorian Bookstore, 802 Elm at Madison, Youngstown, Ohio 44505-2843. This, however, is no longer present at its Internet: http://alt.youngstown.org/dorian.html (although our search engine still locates it there) and perhaps a reader has news?

The Oscar Wilde Book Shop (15 Christopher Street, New York, NY 10014 E-mail: wildebooks@aol.com) now has a website at www.oscarwildebooks.com. This shop (in Greenwich Village) was founded in 1967, was the world's first gay bookshop. After many crises it is now owned and managed by Kim Brinster. It is possible to buy a wide range of products as well as books, on-line. The ‘T-shirt’ below has the words Oscar Wilde, New York City printed on it. Would Wilde have worn it? We think not.

This bookshop, which survived many vicissitudes, closed its doors in March 2009, a victim of the economic crisis. Its website remains for the present.

Also specialising in the fin-de-siècle is Le Lien et le Ligne, the bookshop of M. Bruno Leclercq, which can be found by clicking its banner. This is more than an on-line bookseller, more of a site dedicated to its subject by an enthusiast.

We also recommend another French site, Edition Originale, which is that of the bookshop Le Feu Follet, 6, rue de l'Epée de Bois - 75005 Paris. Click its strangely attenuated colophon and then use the search facility for Wilde items, 23 at time of writing (3rd July 2009).

Nangle Rare Books sells ‘rare books, antiquarian books, old books, second hand books, first edition books’ and specifically lists Oscar Wilde as an author in which it specialises.

Offstage Bookshop opened in 1982 as London's only specialist theatre and film bookshop. They stock an extensive range of technical and theoretical books in the performing arts and film. Their primary strength is the wide selection of titles stocked, and ability to find any book you need quickly and with no fuss. They now describe themselves as ‘firmly embedded’ in Treadwell’s Bookshop, in Covent Garden. (34 Tavistock Street, London WC2E 7PB). Treadwell’s itself is known for stocking books and arranging talks concerned with the writers of the decadence, with a leaning towards the occult.

Offstage has a website, www.offstagebooks.com which offers customers a worldwide mail order service. Offstage also provides offsite bookstalls at festivals and conferences for teachers and practitioners

We also draw your attention to The Peacock Mirror which offers on-line a selection of books, prints and other products focusing on Pre-Raphaelite, Symbolist and fin-de-siècle art. For a while off the screen, it has now returned in revived spirits – or so we wrote in January 2008; in May we found it closed once more; on 10th July it was functioning but on 28th October it had again closed ‘for maintenance’, remaining so when we checked on 5th December; and on 7th January, 8th March and 3rd July 2009. Click the image right for the website: it may have revived.

III. Publishers

We here add the names of independent publishers who specialise in the books of the period. We plan gradually to increase this list and hope readers across the world will assist.

· The Rivendale Press, our own publisher, gets special mention. Its list can be found at http://www.rivendalepress.com/index.html.

· Arts & Crafts Press. Founded by Bruce Smith & Yoshiko Yamamoto, this is a small publishing house producing books and other works of interest to those concerned with the Arts and Crafts movement. All the publications of The Arts & Crafts Press are letterpress printed and bound by hand.

· Callum James Books. Mr James writes that his imprint ‘arose out of my frustration as a collector that many of the texts I wanted to read were difficult to find and very expensive. In 2005 I decided to put out a small booklet-format edition of Boris Orloff by the Rev'd E. E. Bradford and when this went well, other items followed in a similar limited edition format. My aim was then, and still is now, to provide items of a high enough quality to interest the collector whilst remaining affordable enough to be of use to researchers and the general reader. Although my list of titles is clearly biased towards material by and about Frederick Rolfe (aka Baron Corvo), I have a wider interest in Victorian and Edwardian gay literature and occasionally publish those things which have for some other reason caught my attention and imagination. Nearly everything published by Callum James books is either hard to find in the original or is much more expensive on the antiquarian/secondhand market – or both. What started as a hobby in 2005 is now a small business, our publications are now in a number of university and public libraries, we deal with established bookdealers all over the world and we were recently mentioned in The Rare Book Review. Plans for 2008 include the continued publication of our Raven Series of monographs about the life and work of Frederick Rolfe by Robert Scoble. Also to expand the line of conventionally printed hardback books which was started this year with Aspects of Wilde by Vincent O'Sullivan. A number of publications are also in hand relating to Frederick Rolfe, Forrest Reid, A J A Symons, Sheridan LeFanu, Vincent O'Sullivan, E E Bradford, Arnold Smith and a number of others.

· The Genge Press is a small press set up in 2003 by Sue Lloyd, BA, MPhil, to publish mainly books by or about Edmond Rostand (1868–1918), creator of the play Cyrano de Bergerac (1897). All publications are available commercially or direct from the Genge Press via their website, http://www.gengepress.co.uk/ This also contains a brief biography of Rostand and a comprehensive Bibliography of his works, including editions of his plays in English; studies of the poet and his work in French and English; music inspired by his plays, and major performances of the plays in France and abroad. The Genge Press, 45 Quay Street, Minehead, Somerset, TA24 5UL gengepress@aol.com; tel +44 (0)1643 706461.

· Hippocampus Press specialises in horror fiction, largely outside our interest, but including some Victorian ghost, gothic and horror material. An easily read website contains their list.

· Tartarus Press is a small, independent publishing house in Yorkshire, specialising in interesting fiction from the past and present. Titles cross various genres and are often of an unusual nature, which means that they may have been overlooked by mainstream publishers. All evoke a sense of wonder or the supernatural in beautiful, exciting prose. It aims for the highest literary standards and production values. Limited edition hardback books are printed lithographically, bound in sewn sections, and using high quality acid-free paper. Most titles have original dust jacket artwork and many have decorated, embossed boards. A fine website is maintained.

· Tragara Press has a website currently (5th December 2008) under construction; we recommend the bibliography compiled by Steven Halliwell. See http://www.rivendalepress.com/tp.html

· Valancourt Books is an independent small (micro) press founded in March 2005 and presently based in Kansas City, specializing in quality new editions of rare literature from the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries. In their own words ‘Gothic Classics, our flagship series, reprints rare Gothic fiction from the 1790s to the 1820s.  Many of the titles in the series existed in fewer than five copies worldwide before our new editions; scholars and readers interested in reading these wonderful texts were forced to travel thousands of miles to a university rare book room or pay thousands of dollars to obtain a copy from an antiquarian bookseller.  Forthcoming volumes in the series will include works by Charles Robert Maturin. Valancourt Classics seeks out unjustly forgotten literary classics and makes them newly available in annotated scholarly editions.  Recent volumes to appear in this series include Arthur Conan Doyle's Round the Red Lamp (1894), and Forrest Reid's The Garden God (1905). We have a new series of popular literature of the 1890s, which spotlights lesser-known works by celebrated writers like Bram Stoker, Arthur Conan Doyle, and H. Rider Haggard and resurrects forgotten bestsellers by such authors as Marie Corelli, Hall Caine, and Bertram Mitford. Finally, although we do our best to seek out all the older books deserving republication, we sometimes miss one, and we always welcome suggestions as to new additions to our catalogue.’ Consult their website for more information.

· Victorian Secrets revives neglected 19th century works and makes them available to scholars and general readers alike. New titles are under development all the time. View the catalogue for an up-to-date listing. If you would like to suggest a title for publication, contact them at suggestions@victoriansecrets.co.uk. Titles can be made available in large print or different bindings, if required.

· Woodstock Books publishes literary reprints for the academic library market and for general readers and students. Notable is their list of Decadents, Symbolists, Anti-Decadents: Poetry of the 1890s, a series chosen and introduced by R.K.R. Thornton and Ian Small.

Previously in THE OSCHOLARS we have mentioned books published by Mondial. Its list can be consulted at http://www.mondial.com.

IV. EBAY

Ebay is an on-line auction house where many Wilde items are offered, from second-hand paperbacks to playbills to limited editions: 1264 items when we looked for this issue, compared with 856 for the previous one and 3,219 for the one before.  This link –––-> will take you straight to ebay's Wilde pages. Be prepared for some ridiculous prices.

This month we select for illustration the following, which were recently on offer:

Programme + Guest Ticket     27th March  1972 

The London Theatre Company in Constance Cox’s adaptation of

LORD ARTHUR SAVILE'S CRIME  by  OSCAR WILDE, directed  by  John Downing; Sadler’s Wells Theatre, Rosebery Avenue, London. Jack Hulbert, Mervyn Johns, Rose Hill, Bill Kerr, Kate O’Mara, Mcdonald Hobley

Original Film Poster (?) sized circa 10" x 8" - 26cm x 21cm. Not a Reproduction - Ideal for Framing. Poster as title in very good condition. The reverse of the poster gives a synopsis of the story, together with the cast and credits etc.

A collection of audiobooks: The Picture of Dorian Gray (Playing time: 5hrs 20:35mins); The Importance of Being Earnest (Playing time: 2hrs 17:43mins); An Ideal Husband (Playing time: 3hrs 18:15mins); De Profundis (Playing time: 1hrs 49:52mins); The Canterville Ghost (Playing time: 1hrs 23:09mins); Reviews (Playing time: 19hrs 15:47mins); The Ballad of Reading Gaol (Playing time: 1hrs 38:52mins); Aphorisms (Playing time: 0hrs 11:45mins); Lady Windermere's Fan (Playing time: 1hrs 39mins); Short Stories and Poetry (Playing time: 1hrs 01:21mins)

Irish Stamps

25mm (1 inch) button badge, made from high-quality metal components.

Descriptions are those of the sellers, and without any reason for disbelief, nonetheless THE OSCHOLARS cannot vouch for their accuracy (while sometimes appreciating their quaintness).

V. FINALLY...

Oscar Wilde Chair by Jean-Charles de Castelbajac

‘Blue Plaque’ mug, available from English Heritage at £9.99

The Importance of Being Earnest, 1894.

‘The Great Works brand has been created exclusively for the British Library’

‘Oscar Wilde Hero 10oz Coffee Mug’
Quote on mug ‘I have nothing to declare except my genius’.  £4.75 ($US 8.36)

Oscar Wilde Mug from ‘One Horse Shy’

‘Oscar Wilde: “Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinion, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.” Display Wilde's quote as your personal motto. Oh, the irony.’ $14.99

Oscar Wilde Mug by Brainburst Designs:
‘I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying’

‘In England people actually try to be brilliant at breakfast, That is so dreadful of them. Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast.’

(Manufacturer unknown; offered by Classic-Mugz on e-bay for £4.99 new, March 2009)

Oscar Wilde jigsaw puzzle available from www.chrisyates.netstorepuzz.html

Earlier in 2009 on e-bay: ‘Offered for bid is this Bust of Lord Alfred Douglas, poet and friend of Oscar Wilde. Cast in Perma-Stone, this limited edition sculpture is hand decorated in a faux bronze finish and mounted on a walnut base with an engraved name plate. This realistic rendering of ‘Bosie’ would make a welcomed addition to any library or study and is sized perfectly for curio or table display. The bust measures just under six inches in height. Item ships professionally packaged and includes a certificate of authenticity.’ The sculptor is not named in the e-bay entry, but we like the idea of realism being achieved in ‘Perma-stone’ and of a certificate of authenticity for something with a faux-bronze finish.

For the Table of Contents, click |To hub page |To THE OSCHOLARS home page