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Gay News: A series of letters in which Oscar Wilde attempts to proposition the editor of a ladies' magazine has been sold at auction for £33,900.
By: Nigel Robinson
Oscar Wilde
The poet and playwright wrote the five letters to Alsager Vian, one of his fellow editors at Societies Magazine, for which Wilde worked in the 1880s, before finding fame as a playwright.
In one of the letters dated 1887, Wilde asks the young man if he can come and visit him in his rooms.
“Come and dine at Pagani’s in
“No dress – just ourselves and a flask of Italian wine – afterwards we will smoke cigarettes and talk over the journalistic article – could we go to your rooms, I am so far off, and clubs are difficult to talk in.
“This however is for you entirely to settle. Also send me your address again like a good fellow – I have lost it.
“Till Thursday night. This is all wrong, isn’t it? Truly yours, Oscar Wilde”
The letters had been kept by Vian’s family since his death in 1924.
It seems uncertain whether anything came of Wilde’s advances
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde letters sold for £30,000
24 September 2010
The poet and playwright wrote the five letters to Alsager Vian, one of his fellow editors at Societies Magazine, for which Wilde worked in the 1880s, before finding fame as a playwright.
In one of the letters dated 1887, Wilde asks the young man if he can come and visit him in his rooms.
“Come and dine at Pagani’s in Portland Street
“No dress – just ourselves and a flask of Italian wine – afterwards we will smoke cigarettes and talk over the journalistic article – could we go to your rooms, I am so far off, and clubs are difficult to talk in.
“This however is for you entirely to settle. Also send me your address again like a good fellow – I have lost it.
“Till Thursday night. This is all wrong, isn’t it? Truly yours, Oscar Wilde”
Just eight years later Wilde was imprisoned in Reading for homosexuality, and died in Paris in 1900.
The letters had been kept by Vian’s family since his death in 1924.
It seems uncertain whether anything came of Wilde’s advances
“There was only one intention – Wilde was hoping to meet up with him,” said Alan Judd of Bamfords Auctioneers of Derby.
“If they could have shown anything happened, they would have made twice as much.”
