Salomé (1893)
First produced, by Aurélien Lugné-Poe [who also played Herod], at the Théâtre de l’Œuvre, Paris, 11 February 1896 (title role: Lina Munte, manager: Stuart Merrill).
First English production, directed by Florence Farr, produced by the New Stage Club at the Bijou Theatre, London, 10 May 1905 (private performance). The play was banned from public performance in England until 1930.
First US production by the Progressive Stage Society, at the Berkeley Lyceum Theatre, New York, November 13, 1905.
First published in French, in book form, simultaneously in Paris by Librairie de l’Art Indépendant, and in London by Elkin Mathews and John Lane, the Bodley Head, 22 February 1893.
A full synopsis of the play and a partial translation in English already appeared as “Mr. Wilde’s Forbidden Play“, in The Westminster Gazette, London, on 23 February 1893. A second translation was made in The New York World, New York, March 12, 1893. (see Cooper, “First English“, May 29, 2021).
The English version was published in London by Elkin Mathews and John Lane and in Boston by Copeland & Day, 24 February 1894 (see Beckson, Encyclopedia, p. 325; in his Bibliography, p. 379, Mason gives 9 February 1894, as does Nelson, p. 242). (Salomé, 1912: https://bit.ly/3fS2uhF)
GENESIS
“I would like to go to Spain just to visit the Prado Museum and see that Salomé of Titian’s before which Tintoretto exclaimed, ‘Here is the man who paints with living flesh!’ No doubt you have seen that Salomé … she is standing up after her triumph, holding up on a silver tray the head of the Precursor….You’ve seen the Salomé by Stanzioni as well, haven’t you? And the one by Alessandro Veronese? The Prado is filled with Salomés.
… From that time forth a day never went by when he didn’t speak to me of Salomé. Sometimes women passing by in the street made him dream of the princess of Israel. He used to stand for hours in the main streets, looking at jewellers’ windows and imagining the perfect jewellery for the adornment of his idol’s body. Even the rarest of fabrics displayed in sumptuous folds in the windows of such shops appeared to him hardly worthy of enfolding the disturbing slimness of Herod’s niece.
One evening after a long empty silence, he suddenly said to me right in the middle of the street:
– Don’t you think she would be better completely naked?
At once I understood we were talking about Her.
…
On another occasion we were at the home of the great poet Jean Lorrain. Before a sculpture of a woman’s decapitated head Wiide turned pale and shouted out:
– But it’s Salome!’ …
At once he conjured up the image of a princess who brought her lover the head of Saint John, a princess who later felt herself rejected and willingly sent her lover her own head.
– I swear to you, it’s true! he murmured. This one is Salomé, the woman who, in her despair, had John the Baptist beheaded.
…
Wilde began a short story entitled The Double Beheading. Not long after he tore up what he had written and considered writing a poem. He did not do so, but decided on writing a play. He was once more obsessed by the desire of seeing Sarah Bernhardt, by some miracle a young woman again, dancing naked before Herod. Abandoning his native tongue, it was in French that Wilde tried to create his Salomé.
His ‘Salomé’ I say, and I am in error: for there were ten, no, a hundred Salomés that he imagined, that he began, that he abandoned. Each painting he saw in a museum suggested a new idea; each book he found in which the object of his interest was mentioned filled him with self-doubts.“ (Gomez Carrillo, quoted in Mikhail, Interviews and Recollections, pp. 192-4)
“By 1890 he was explicitly discussing his intention to write on the subject. In the autumn of the following year it took shape as a dramatic piece composed in the French language, in a series of drafts written in Paris between October and December 1891, the finishing touches being applied in January 1892.“ (Price, p. 328)
“Wilde had certainly begun work on it [‘Salomé’] by 27 October 1891 …“ (Complete Letters, p. 506n)
[27 October 1891] “I breakfasted with him [George Curzon], Oscar Wilde, and Willy Peel, on which occasion Oscar told us he was writing play in French to be acted in the Français. He is ambitious of being a French Academician.“ (Blunt, p. 58)
“Salomé was written by Oscar Wilde at Torquay in the winter of 1891-2. The initial idea of treating the subject came to him some time previously, after seeing in Paris a well-known series of Gustave Moreau`s pictures inspired by the same theme.“ (Ross, “A Note on ‘Salomé,’“ p. ix)
“My idea of writing the play was simply this: I have one instrument that I know I can command, and that is the English Language. There was another instrument to which I had listened all my life, and I wanted once to touch this new instrument to see whether I could make any beautiful thing out of it. The play was written in Paris some six months ago, where I read it to some young poets, who admired it immensely. Of course there are modes of expression that a Frenchman of letters would not have used, but they give a certain relief of colour to the play.“ (Oscar Wilde in The Pall Mall Budget, XL, London, 30 June 1892, p. 947, quoted in Mikhail, Interviews and Recollections, p. 188)
“After a few weeks in Paris starting at the end of October 1891, writing at his usual remarkable speed, Wilde had completed two successive manuscripts of Salomé, both written in notebooks purchased from a stationer near his hotel. He returned just before Christmas to his Tite Street home in London, celebrated the holiday with his family, and at the end of the month took himself off to a friend’s estate, near Torquay in Devon. There, writing once more in a pair of notebooks (purchased this time from a stationer in the Strand), Wilde spent about two weeks preparing a revised fair copy of the play brought back from Paris, now close to completion. Before leaving Paris he had enlisted the help of four writer friends, Pierre Louÿs, Marcel Schwob, Adolphe Retté and the expatriate American poet and theatre manager Stuart Merrill, to read his manuscript when he was ready for them to do so and advise him on linguistic usage and related matters. Having returned to Tite Street and put the finishing touches to his play, perhaps in late January or early February he conveyed the two Torquay notebooks to his Parisian friends, probably by way of Louÿs. They annotated the notebooks extensively, making fine adjustments to vocabulary, idiom and usage.“ (Donohue, “Wilde in France“, pp. 14-15)
“… Salomé was written in French by Wilde, then revised and corrected by me, [Adolphe] Retté and Pierre Louÿs, in that order, but solely from the point of view of the language. Schwob corrected the proofs.“ (Stuart Merrill quoted in Mikhail Interviews and Recollections, p. 469)
“One day Merrill said to me: ’Wilde would like you and me to take pen in hand and read the manuscript of his play Salomé to take out those anglicisms which are too explicit. I didn’t share his view, for it’s precisely the exotic nature of Wilde’s French which seems to me to be one of the attractions of the play. However, Wilde insists on it.’
I shared Merrill’s opinion and I said so to Wilde. Nevertheless he was insistent. He brought me the manuscript of Salomé.
…
I pointed out a few marginal corrections. I made Wilde cut out a lengthy speech by Herod in which he listed precious stones. For his part Merrill suggested a few slight alternations. Next Salomé passed to Pierre Louÿs who also changed a few sentences. It is this text which was printed.“ (Adolphe Retté quoted in ibid., pp. 190-1)
“Mon cher ami, Voilà le drame de Salomé. Ce n’est pas encore fini ou même corrigé, mais ça donne l’idée de la construction, du motif et du mouvement dramatique. Ici et là, il y a des lacunes, mais l’idée du dráme est claire.“ (letter to Pierre Louÿs, [December 1891], Complete Letters, p. 506)
“The play was passed for press, however, by no less a writer than Marcel Schwob whose letter to the Paris publisher, returning the proofs and mentioning two or three slight alterations, is still in my possession. Marcel Schwob told me some years afterwards that he thought it would have spoiled the spontaneity and character of Wilde’s style if he had tried to harmonise it with the diction it demanded by the French Academy.“ (Ross, “Preface“ (1910), pp. viii-ix)
“Now, Marcel Schwob, who was a close friend of Wilde, passed the proofs of Salome for press, and made only two corrections. This is quite true, but a false deduction has been drawn from it. Correction in proof does not preclude correction in manuscript. Salome was written in Paris in French, but not in the French that now stands as the text, not in the French that Marcel Schwob corrected as it went to press. The French of Salome is not the language of a Frenchman, but it is better than the French of Wilde, whose fantasy in conversation would have earned harder, names in print. It is worth while to inquire into the facts.
… Wilde wrote the play in the French he talked, perhaps in French even less careful. He wrote it swiftly and without revision. It was a princess clothed in the fine gold of very simple speech, and in the tattered rags of colloquialism. He took it to Stuart Merrill and asked his help in removing these accidental disfigurements. Merrill corrected the French, eliminating, for example, such expletives as ‘enfin,’ with which it was too liberally decorated. Almost all the speeches, he says, began with ’enfin.’ Wilde, in writing his play rapidly in a foreign language, would naturally use any short cut he could find in carrying the body of the tragedy to the paper. ‘Enfin’ is an easy way of getting into a speech. He would use it to get on with his play, knowing that it would not be difficult to obliterate it in revision. But Stuart Merrill, although one of the most delightful of modern French poets, is American by birth. Perhaps it was because of this that Wilde lost confidence in his corrections. He took the play away, and gave it, on Merrill’s advice, to Adolph Retté, then a Symbolist and Anarchist, since become a Poet of Nature and a Catholic. Retté went on with the work of revision. The play was probably at this stage when it was read at the Théatre de l’Œuvre (originally the Théatre d’Art) to my very dear friend Paul Fort, the founder of this theatre, where it was eventually to be played. It was not performed at this time, and Wilde came to distrust Retté’s criticism as much as Merrill’s, and took the play to Pierre Louys, the celebrated author of Aphrodite, who, as Merrill says, gave it the last touches of the file. After all this it was published in Paris and London by the ‘Librairie de l’Art Indépendant’ and Messrs. Elkin Mathews and John Lane, when, in reading the proofs for press, Marcel Schwob contributed his two corrections. That, so far as I have been able to discover, is the true story of the writing and revision of Salome.“ (Ransome, “Oscar Wilde in Paris“, The Bookman, New York, p. 271)
“Monsieur, Je vous envoie les épreuves, sauf les trois dernières pages, que j’ai perdues. Après que les corrections ont été faites, vous m’enverrez des autres, n’est-ce-pas, et aussi à M. Marcel Schwob, et à M. Pierre Louÿs. Je pense que ce serait mieux de ne pas publier avant Ie quinze janvier. L’édition sera de 600 exemplaires, n’est-ce-pas, et 50 sur papier de luxe.“ (letter to E. Bailly [Edmond Bailly, manager of the Librairie de l’Art Indépendant], ?circa 16 December 1892, Complete Letters, p. 541)
“Dear Lane, I expect Salomé will be ready in a fortnight – at any rate before the end of the month. I am printing 50 on large-paper, of which you can have 25 if you like; they will be 10s. each, sale price.“ (letter to John Lane, Babbacombe Cliff, early February 1893, ibid. p. 545)
“In the advertisement at the end of Mr Symonds book [In the Key of Blue and other Essays], I observe you state of Salomé, ‘This is the play that Lord Chamberlain refused to license etc.’ Please do not do this again. The interest and value of Salomé is not that it was suppressed by a foolish official, but that it was written by an artist.“ (letter to John Lane, Babbacombe Cliff, early February 1893, ibid., p. 547)
“… the English-language Salome turned out to be the firm’s most profitable book.“ (Guy and Small, Oscar Wilde’s Profession, p. 168)
“I have finished my play, and have arranged for its production in London. But I want to have it produced first in Paris.“ (letter to HSH the Princess of Monaco, [?28 October 1891], Complete Letters, p. 491)
“At first sight this would appear to refer to Lady Windermere’s Fan but having it ‘produced in Paris first’ makes little sense. …This raises the possibility that Wilde had already written much of Salomé before leaving for Paris (where he had already spent at least two weeks in the spring), had provisionally arranged for its production the following year, and was in France to polish its language.“ (ibid., p. 491n)
“The existence of the two early drafts of the play [Salomé] written in notebooks purchased in the Boulevard des Capucines, one of them dated November 1891, argues against this conjecture [see Complete Letters, p. 491n]; moreover, there is no evidence that Wilde had arranged for a London production of Salomé at this point. In fact, in the closing months of 1891 he would be pursuing Paul Fort, the director of the Théâtre d’Art, in hopes of a production in Paris. … The further fact that the Texas manuscript of Salomé [see below no. 2], much worked over and in an unfinished state, is dated by Wilde ‘Paris Nov. ’91’ makes it virtually impossible that he can be referring to Salomé“ and not to Lady Windermere’s Fan … .“(Donohue, Complete Works, vol. V, pp. 341-2)
“To judge by the earliest surviving manuscript [see below no. 1], Wilde wrote until he came to a sticking point, then skipped ahead to another scene or sequence, presumably intending to return later to fill the gaps and assign character names to speeches. A second manuscript [see below no. 2], much more complete and containing speech headings found in published texts of the play, suggests something of the complexities of the composition process. Still a third manuscript [see below no. 3], a fair copy of the previous manuscript made by Wilde himself, shows evidence of a number of revisions in more than one hand. Evidence exists to indicate that four friends or associates of Wilde – Pierre Louÿs, Marcel Schwob, Stuart Merrill and Adolphe Retté – were asked by him to review the work and make suggestions (which in some cases Wilde rejected, as the manuscript itself indicates).“ (Donohue, “Distance, Death and Desire in Salome“, pp. 121-2)
“… there are, unfortunately, no surviving manuscripts of the English translation …“ (Donohue, Complete Works, vol. V, p. [vii])
NOTES, DRAFTS, MANUSCRIPTS
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Present Location |
Shelfmark |
Provenance |
Catalogue Entries / Notes |
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1. Autograph Draft [1891] |
Fondation Martin Bodmer |
??? no digital copy |
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“Pencil draft, with considerable correction, of [Salome], neither headed, dated, nor signed. The French version, 1891, from a revised text of which Lord Alfred Douglas’s translation was made. … 100 leaves, 216 x 171 mm., text on one side only, additions and corrections on blank leaves; at last 39 leaves left blank. A stiff-backed notebook bearing a label ‘A l’Avenir, 19 Bould. des Capucines, Paris’. Printed in Paris, 22 Feb. 1893. Bought at Sotheby’s sale of the collection of A. B. Clifton, 3 April 1950 (no. 206).“ |
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“There is writing on fifty-six leaves; some few additional leaves are left unintentionally blank. The writing occurs predominantly on the recto, with additional writing facing verso …Comparison of this manuscript with the other two described below [nos. 2 and 3] makes it certain that this is the first surviving draft of the play. It has been gone over by the author at least once, with some resulting revisions. There is no description of the scene, nor is a list of dramatic personae, or ‘personnes’, provided.“ “Generally, the character of the writing is hurried, suggesting that the author has a clear idea of what he wants to say and is hastening to say it. When the inspiration of the moment wanes, he breaks off, turns the page, and continues with another sequence, sketching it out as rapidly as before.“ |
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Martin Bodmer |
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Maggs |
[purchased for £150, see Sotheby’s price-list] |
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Valuable Printed Books, Important Literary Manuscripts, Autograph Letters, etc. … and A Very Remarkable Series of Manuscripts of Oscar Wilde, Sotheby’s, London, 3-4 April 1950, lot 206 |
“ [facsimile of autograph leaf facing first page of catalogue] “A Highly Important Series of Manuscripts of Oscar Wilde, Formerly the Property of A. B. Clifton, Partner with Ronald [Robert] Ross in the Carfax Galleries, And now Sold by the Order of Michael Sadleir, Esq.“ |
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“A number of autograph manuscripts by Oscar Wilde reached high prices: the first draft of Salomé, £150; the first fair copy, £400 …“ |
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“The first draft of Salomé, written entirely in Wilde’s hand, in pencil, made £150 …“ |
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“The 10 manuscripts fetched in all £1,592 …They were being sold for Mr Michael Sadleir who bought them shortly after the War.“ |
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Michael Sadleir |
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?unknown book dealer |
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?Madeline Clifton |
[see “The Importance of Being Earnest“ no. 4] |
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Arthur B. Clifton |
“These ten Wilde items, sold by a well-known English collector, had formerly belonged to A. B. Clifton, partner of Robert Ross in the Carfax Galleries; it is to be presumed that they were obtained either by purchase or gift. Many years later they were discovered in an old trunk belonging to the estate of Mrs. Clifton, the wife of the original owner.“ |
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?Robert Ross |
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2. Autograph Manuscript 1 volume 129 pages [signed] Paris, Nov. 1891 |
Harry Ransom Center University of Texas, Austin, TX
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MS-4515 digital copy: |
acquired with the second batch of T. E. Hanley’s collection in Nov. 1964 |
“Holograph notebook with author revisions. In French.“ “Salome / Drame en un acte / par Oscar Wilde / Paris. Nov. 91“ [in Wilde’s hand] “This manuscript was owned by Michael Sadleir who obtained it through A. B. Clifton the partner of Wilde’s literary executor Ronald [corr. Robert] Ross.“ [typewritten note on the inside of the black cover] [a handwritten note, in pencil on purple paper, on the inside cover of the manuscript: “Rosenbach Ms. 2 volumes 119 ff (note books bought from Harding [stationer], Picadilly [sic] W.)“ This note refers to no. 3] |
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“… dated ‘Paris, November ’91′, which is in a similarly ticketed notebook [see MS Bodmer, no. 1] and is lightly corrected in Wilde’s hand.“ |
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“Holding carries a letter of probity, stating that the Rosenbach MS [see no. 3] is longer, written in two notebooks of British origin. The [Texas] MS is written in one notebook purchased near Wilde’s address in Paris when he was working on the play.“ |
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“An autograph manuscript, extensively revised, written in a bound notebook with a black cloth cover, pages faint-ruled. Predominantly a fair copy, though much revised, in Wilde’s hand. There are 102 folios.“ |
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T. E. Hanley |
Hanley bought the manuscript for $2500 as indicated by Hanley’s code UEDD on image 5 top right corner to denote price paid for the item: U=2, E=5, D=0. Hanley used the code “Cumberland“ to denote the price. [neither date nor auction or dealer given] |
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Jacob Schwartz |
purchased for £400 “Jake [Schwartz] fed to Hanley nearly everything good that came his way: William Blake drawings and engravings, Whitman presentation copies, Shaw books, letters, manuscripts and memorabilia, Joyce, Wilde, Yeats, Dylan Thomas, both Lawrences, Pound, Eliot – the list is almost endless.“ |
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Valuable Printed Books, Important Literary Manuscripts, Autograph Letters, etc. … and A Very Remarkable Series of Manuscripts of Oscar Wilde, Sotheby’s, London, 3-4 April 1950, lot 207 |
“ [facsimile of one page, see frontispiece] “A Highly Important Series of Manuscripts of Oscar Wilde, Formerly the Property of A. B. Clifton, Partner with Ronald [Robert] Ross in the Carfax Galleries, And now Sold by the Order of Michael Sadleir, Esq.“ |
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“The first draft of Salomé, written entirely in Wilde’s hand, in pencil, made £150, and the first fair copy, entirely in Wilde’s hand, of the same play, dated Paris 1891, £400.“ |
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“A number of autograph manuscripts by Oscar Wilde reached high prices: the first draft of Salomé, £150; the first fair copy, £400 …“ |
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“The 10 manuscripts fetched in all £1,592 …They were being sold for Mr Michael Sadleir who bought them shortly after the War.“ |
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Michael Sadleir |
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?unknown book dealer |
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?Madeline Clifton |
[see “The Importance of Being Earnest“ no. 4] |
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Arthur B. Clifton |
“These ten Wilde items, sold by a well-known English collector, had formerly belonged to A. B. Clifton, partner of Robert Ross in the Carfax Galleries; it is to be presumed that they were obtained either by purchase or gift. Many years later they were discovered in an old trunk belonging to the estate of Mrs. Clifton, the wife of the original owner.“ |
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?Robert Ross |
(Dickson (ed.), The Importance of Being Earnest, p. xv) |
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3. Autograph Manuscript Draft (apparently final fair draft) two notebooks 120 pages 1891 |
The Rosenbach [former Rosenbach Foundation]
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EL3 W672s MS no digital copy |
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“Salomé: drame en une acte / Oscar Wilde: AMs, [1891]. 2 v. (120 p.) in case; 25 cm. Summary: Final fair copy of the manuscript of the play, in Wilde’s hand with corrections and emendations in the hand of Pierre Louÿs, to whom the work is dedicated. Tipped in at the end is a receipt from the Librarie de l’Art Independent for the guarantee given by Pierre Louÿs for its publication.“ |
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“Autograph manuscript predominantly in Wilde’s hand, but with evidence of other hands as well. The manuscript survives in two quarto notebooks of English origin a stationer, Harding, in Piccadilly, London. The paper is ruled, bound in maroon leather (volume 1) or black leather (volume 2), with gold stamped rules on the margins of the covers and seven horizontal parallel lines on the spines.There are marbled endpapers. The pages are unnumbered. The text is written on recto pages; versos are blank, except for occasional annotations in Wilde’s hand. … “Attention should be called to a unique feature of the Rosenbach manuscript: the existence of a ground plan for the play. In the process of making a fair copy of the play in two bound notebooks he had purchased for the purpose, revising as he went along, Wilde wrote out the list of dramatic personae, ‘Personnes’, on page two of the first notebook; either then or at some future time, he turned the leaf and sketched a ground plan on the verso.The plan has been drawn in ink and labelled in a hand reoognizably Wilde’s …“ |
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A selection from our shelves: Books, manuscripts and drawings from the Philip H. & A. S. W. Rosenbach Foundation Museum, Philadelphia, 1973, item 84 |
“Oscar Wilde. Autograph manuscript of ‘Salomé,’ [1891] The manuscript on 119 leaves in two limp leather notebooks were given by Wilde to Pierre Louÿs, to whom the first edition was dedicated. Also present is the receipt given by the Librairie de l’Art indépendant for the guarantee given by Louÿs for its publication. Provenance: Pierre Louÿs – Frank Altschul, acquired 1926. |
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Monuments of Wit and Learning: Rare Books and Manuscripts, Incunabula, Law, Music, Americana, Literature, The Rosenbach Company, Philadelphia & New York, 1946, lot 634A |
“Original Autograph Manuscript of Salomé. 2 vols., 4to, in original limp leather notebooks. $8750.00 … The present manuscript written in two notebooks gives the impression of the fluency and verve with which Wilde created his work. In the first volume, facing the text, is a diagram of the stage setting, drawn by Wilde himself. The manuscript belonged originally to the eminent French author Pierre Louÿs, to whom the first edition was dedicated. There is also a manuscript receipt from E. Bailly, manager of the Librairie de l’Art Independent, for a payment by Louÿs towards the publication of the play in Paris, 1893.“ |
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English Literary Manuscripts from Chaucer to Conrad, The Rosenbach Company, New York, June 22 – July 2, 1937, p. 14 |
“WILDE, OSCAR / Salomé. / The Original Manuscript.“ |
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A Catalogue of Original Manuscripts, Presentation Copies, First Editions and Autograph Letters of Modern Authors, The Rosenbach Company, Philadelphia and New York, 1933, lot 385 |
“ prized $15.500 |
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Catalogue of An Exhibition of Manuscripts and Rare Books, January – February 1931, The Rosenbach Company, Philadelphia, p. 22 |
“WILDE, OSCAR / Salomé. / The Original Manuscript.“ |
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A. S. W. Rosenbach |
purchased from Frank Altschul in June 1926, price $7,300
“After dinner we went to his library, and he [“a well-known American collector in New York“] pointed very proudly to two old copy books on the table. The moment I looked at the pages I knew that at last I held the original in my hands. … He told me its history as far as he knew it; the manuscript had been purchased by Pierre Louÿs, the eminent French poet. It was he who bought it directly from the shop in Paris when I first tried to obtain it twenty years ago.“ |
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Frank Altschul |
puchased at the sale of manuscripts of Pierre Louÿs, Paris 14 May 1926 |
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Manuscrits de Pierre Louÿs, L. Carteret, Paris, 14 Mai 1926, lot 83 |
“ Manuscrit capital d’Oscar Wilde, le plus important qui ait jamais passé en vente publique. Il est Ces corrections à la plume n’ont pas été approuvées par Pierre Louÿs qui rétablit le texte primitif en biffant au crayon le changements indiqués; cependant certaines semblent être de la main du maître; c’est ainsi que dans le plan de la scène, en tête du manuscrit, Pierre Louÿs a indiqué, au crayon, deux modifications essentielles. Ajoutons que ce manuscrit est demeuré Inaccessible à tous les biographes et éditeurs d’Oscar Wilde et qu’il mériterait d’être intégralement reproduit dans une publication spéciale. Le manuscrit a été placé par Pierre Louÿs sous enveloppe de papier bulle sur laquelle le Maître a écrit: |
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“The manuscript of Oscar Wilde’s ‘Salome,’ which belonged to M. Louÿs, was sold to English buyers [sic] for 161.000 francs.“ “Paris, May 15 – The manuscript of Oscar Wilde’s ‘Salomé’ was sold at auction for £880.“ |
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Pierre Louÿs |
“The genuine MS. of Oscar Wilde’s Salomé, has at last come to light in the library of the late French writer, Pierre Louÿs. It is written in two copybooks, in a neat clean hand, with a number of small corrections. Some of these are merely orthographic and grammatical and are obviously not in Wilde’s handwriting. They may be ascribed to one or more of the French literary friends who revised his text before it was printed. There are many variants with the editions, the proof sheets having been altered in several places while the book was passing through the press. |
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“… the manuscript had been purchased by Pierre Louÿs, the eminent French poet. It was he who had bought it directly from the shop in Paris when I first tried to obtain it twenty years before.“ |
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Paris bookshop |
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4. Autograph Manuscript Sheet 1 page |
unknown |
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Books on Roses, Finely Bound Sets, First Editions, Americana, Autographs. Property of the Estates of the late Mrs Henry Morgan Tilford, Tuxedo Park, Mrs Carolyn Wells Houghton, New York, and Others, Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, Oct. 28-9, 1942, lot 597 |
“[Salome.] Lond., 1894, 1st English Ed., Small 4to, cloth, Back faded. Ltd. to 500 copies. Laid in is a page of ms. notes on Herodotus apparently in the hand of Wilde. G. (597) $17“ [this page could also be part either of Wilde’s heavily annotated copy of Herodotus, 2 vols, which he had in his possession in his Oxford days (its current location is unknown) or part of one of his autograph notebooks] |
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5. Typewritten Manuscript 81 pages (63 pages plus pp. 47-64 from the original typescript) [Paris, Spring 1892 (see Donohue “Wilde in France“, pp. 14-5)]
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Library Manuscript Collection, Rare Book Department
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RBD LIT MSS 1978-1391 digital copy: |
gift of Mrs Richard [Julia] Gimbel Nov 1978 |
“In French. Extensively marked and corrected, sometimes in Wilde’s hand. Bound as a volume, containing leaves from a carbon copy of the script ((2), 63 leaves), followed by pages from its original typescript (p. 47-64). The direction “A Pierre Louÿs“ is written three [sic] on this copy. With book plate of John Quinn.“ Title page: “SALOME, Drame en un Acte, Oscar Wild. [sic]“ “This is the original type-written Manuscript of ‘Salomé’ – it contains numerous corrections + excisions in Wilde’s handwriting, the latter made in view of its stage-production by Sarah Bernhardt.“ [first introduction of the “Dance of the Seven Veils“] |
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“… the sole surviving typescript of the only work Wilde wrote in a language other than his own. … a typescript comprised of two scripts of Salomé: a carbon copy made on tissue paper, nearly complete but lacking the last page, and a text typed on more substantial paper but severely fragmented, containing only the last seventeen pages. Comparison of ribbon and carbon copies confirms that the latter belongs to the former. The two are bound plainly together, carbon copy first, forming a slender, untitled volume bearing on the inside front cover the bookplate of the influential Irish-American attorney and collector John Quinn (1870–1924), and endorsed on the flyleaf in pencil: ‘This is the original type-written manuscript of ‘Salomé’ – it contains numerous corrections & excisions in Wilde’s handwriting – the latter made in view of its stage production by Sarah Bernhardt’. “… its extensive annotations, unquestionably Wilde’s, in red or black pencil – including numerous verbal changes and the transposition of half a paragraph as well as many cuts, long and short, plus a hurried pencil sketch of a cistern – seemed to suggest simultaneously the altering or updating of a reading text of the play and the recording of changes made under the fraught circumstances of rehearsal.“ |
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“There was only one set of rehearsals for Salomé with which Wilde could be directly associated. Comparison of the Rosenbach manuscript and the Free Library typescript established a window of possibility of a mere few months, in early 1892, in which the typescript could have been prepared and then used for an impending production. The assumption therefore had to be that the typescript did indeed represent the text Sarah Bernhardt obtained from Wilde and used to rehearse her London production of Salomé, which she planned to open at the end of her season at the Royal English Opera House starting in late May of that year.“ |
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“Wilde had evidently caused a typescript to be prepared based on the annotated notebooks [see no. 3] before he had even addressed the annotations his friends had provided.“ “In all manuscripts up to and including the Rosenbach … as well as the unannotated typescript, the direction reads, simply: ‘(SALOMÉ dance)’. In the typescript Wilde inserts an additional phrase, so that the direction reads: ’(SALOMÉ dance / la dance des sept voiles)’ – ‘SALOMÉ dances the dance of the seven veils) [see typescript p. 51, https://bit.ly/3dgnSdc]’.“ |
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“… we may identify the Free Library typescript as the text of the play that Sarah Bernhardt intended to produce in July 1892 …“ |
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Richard Gimbel |
Gimbel had bought the Salomé typescript from A. S. W. Rosenbach. |
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A. S. W. Rosenbach |
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Rare First Editions, Autograph Letters, Manuscripts … The Distinguished Library of Howard J. Sachs, Stamford, Conn., Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, Feb. 1, 1944, lot 125 |
“Typewritten manuscript in French of ‘Salome’. 64 pp., 4to, boards; title-leaf partly torn away. A descriptive penciled note on the end-leaf reads as follows: ‘This is the original typewritten manuscript of ’Salome’ it contains numerous corrections & excisions in Wilde’s handwriting – the latter made in view of its stage production by Sarah Bernhardt’. With the John Quinn bookplate.“ |
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“Typed MS of ‘Salome’ in French. 82 [sic] pages, 4to; bds.; title-leaf partly torn away. ‘…numerous corrections & excisions in Wilde’s handwriting…’ Quinn ms. O (125) $90.“ |
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Howard J. Sachs |
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The Brick Row Book Shop |
“The typewritten manuscript of the same author’s Salomé was bought by Brick Row Book Shop for $200.“ |
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The Library of John Quinn, part 5, Anderson Galleries, New York, March 17-20, 1924, lot 11087 |
“ The Manuscript is Complete, and is in French, with numerous changes, corrections and revisions in the handwriting of the author, made in view of the stage production of Sarah Bernhardt.“ |
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“Salomé, typewritten MS., written on 81 pages, quarto, and bound in boards (11087), March 17, Anderson Galleries – $200. [The MS. is complete, and is in French, with numerous changes, corrections and revisions in the handwriting of the author, made in view of the stage production of Sarah Bernhardt.]“ |
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John Quinn |
purchased by John Quinn for £6-0-0, 27 April 1905 |
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Wright & Jones, 350, Fulham Road, London, S. W., n. d., item 654 |
“Salomé, Drame en un Acte, the original type-written MSS., it contains numerous corrections and excisions in Wilde’s handwriting, the latter made in view of its stage production, by Sarah Bernhardt, 4to, bds. £6“ |
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Wright & Jones, Publishers’ Weekly, Sept. 17, 1904, p. 519 |
“Books for Sale: Wright & Jones, 372 Fulham, London, S. W., Eng.: Wilde, O. Salome: type mss. £6.“ [Leonard Smithers, a partner at that time of Wright & Jones (i. e. Alfred Cooper), produced a pirated edition of Salomé that very year] |
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6. Author’s Corrected Proof copy [1892] |
William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
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W6721M2 S171 no digital copy |
acquired in March 1976, from Black Sun Books |
“Wilde, Oscar, 1854-1900. “Salome, 1892 |
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(not in Finzi) |
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“Second proof copy, dated 12 juillet [?] 1892. Corrections and deletions in Wilde’s hand in pencil; corrections in at least one other in ink. Sale catalogue suggests that MS corrections are those of Marcel Schwob. There are both stylistic and grammatical corrections. …“ |
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“Beginning on 8 July [1892], proof sheets of Salomé bearing this date, stamped by Schmidt, the printer, begin to appear, succeeded by proof bearing later dates through late August. Now in the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, Los Angeles, is a volume containing partial proofs, mostly first, but a few second and third, bound up together in textual sequence to make a full though composite proof copy of the play, with some repetition but without gaps. Wilde’s corrections, though not many, appear along with a few corrections by someone else, perhaps Louÿs or Schwob. The dates of the proof, scribbled into the blank space provided in Schmidt’s stamp, form a putative sequence of approximately six weeks, from early July to late August.“ |
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Black Sun Books |
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Collection of Mrs G. Blumenthal |
“The corrected proof sheets [of Salomé] are in the collection of Mrs G. Blumenthal [1921].“ |
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Robert Ross |
“The play was passed for press, however, by no less a writer than Marcel Schwob whose letter to the Paris publisher, returning the proofs and mentioning two or three slight alterations, is still in my possession.“ |
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7. Lord Chamberlain’s License Copy (typewritten manuscript)
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?British Library |
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c. 27 June 1892 |
“Rehearsals for this production at the Palace Theatre, London [at that time the Royal English Opera House, later the Palace Theatre, see Donohue, Complete Works, vol. V, p. 468], … were in full swing when the Lord Chamberlain, towards the end of June, banned the play …“ |
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8. Library of Congress Copyright çopy |
Library of Congress |
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April 12, 1907 |
Dramatic Compositions Copyrighted in the United States, 1870 to 1916, Volume 2, Library of Congress, Washington, 1918, p. 2045 |