I have been in the rare and antiquarian book business for over forty years; my family has been in the rare books business since 1876. Rare books are in my blood.
Ideal Husband, An
London: Leonard Smithers and Co., 1899. Item #06514
“A Play of Conscience and Corruption - Wilde at His Brilliant Peak”
First Edition, Limited Issue - From the Library of Esher Place
WILDE, Oscar. An Ideal Husband. By the Author of Lady Windermere's Fan. London: Leonard Smithers and Co., 1899.
First edition, limited to 1,000 copies.
Small quarto (8 1/4 x 6 1/8 inches; 210 x 155 mm.). [xvi], 213, [1] pp.
Publisher’s mauve cloth, covers elaborately decorated in gilt, spine decoratively stamped and lettered in gilt, top edge trimmed, others uncut.
With the printed Esher Place Library location label (dated 1897) on the front paste-down, denoting its place within a late Victorian country house library system.
Housed in a red cloth chemise, within a full maroon calf slipcase, spine with five raised bands, ruled and lettered in gilt in compartments. Endpapers and half-title with the lightest amount of foxing, otherwise a spectacular example, the binding fresh and unfaded.
One of Wilde’s four great society comedies, An Ideal Husband premiered in 1895 at the Haymarket Theatre and stands among his most sophisticated explorations of public virtue and private compromise. Written at the height of his fame - and on the eve of his dramatic fall - the play offers a sharply observed critique of political morality, reputation, and the currency of secrets in late Victorian society.
The 1899 Smithers edition, issued in a limitation of 1,000 copies following Wilde’s imprisonment, represents the first appearance of the play in book form, and remains the preferred edition for collectors.
Price: $3,250.00