1878 RAVENNA OSCAR WILDE 1ST EDITION 1 of 168 COPIES AUTHOR 1ST BOOK POEM POETRY by Oscar Wilde - 1878

RAVENNA

1878; Oscar Wilde; 1st Edition, 1st Issue; Oxford: Thomas Shrimpton and Son; Softback; 16 Pages; w4.7"xh7"; Very Rare!

ATTRIBUTES:
•Very Rare original softcover design, Bordered title page with Crest,
•One woodcut heading/initial/ending, And a Great Poetical Classic,
•Famed Author's 1st Book/Work; 1 of only 168 Copies!

SUMMARY:
•Wilde wrote "Ravenna" while a student at Oxford and submitted it anonymously to compete for the Newdigate Prize. "In 'Ravenna' the young man recalls his journey there the year before, and muses elegiacally upon its fallen greatness. Collapse was always one of Wilde's themes… The poem is a clever hodgepodge of personal reminiscence, topographical description, political and literary history. It contains apostrophes to Dante and Byron… As to Ravenna, the city is alternately regarded as doomed and evergreen, and the poet, to finish it off, promises inconclusively to love it forever" (Ellmann, 91). Wilde's winning of the Newdigate Prize for the poem was one of his great triumphs at Oxford, and his public reading "was listened to with rapt attention and frequently applauded." Although Wilde politely listened to the recommendations the Professor of Poetry made toward improvement of this poem after its receipt of the prize, he ignored them and had the poem printed entirely unchanged. Mason 301.

BACKGROUND:

•Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s. He is best remembered for his epigrams and plays, his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, and the circumstances of his imprisonment and early death.

•Wilde won the 1878 Newdigate Prize for his poem "Ravenna", which reflected on his visit there the year before, and he duly read it at Encaenia. In November 1878, he graduated with a double first in his B.A. of Classical Moderations and Literae Humaniores (Greats). Wilde wrote to a friend, "The dons are 'astonied' beyond words – the Bad Boy doing so well in the end!

CONDITION:
•Condition is Good+/Very Good. Some wear to edges, missing small piece to upper front side cover/near top front spine, missing a little paper near ends of spine, little blemishing to lower front/browning near edges, pencil c.s. s.s. to upper front cover, pages are very good, everything together well for this book, would handle with care!