Salomé. by WILDE, Oscar - 1893

Paris & London: Librairie de l'Art Independant; Elkin Mathews & John Lane,, 1893. Drame en un acte. Octavo (200 x 143 mm). Contemporary purple hard-grain half morocco, spine lettered in gilt, gilt rules, marbled paper sides and endpapers, top edge gilt, original purple wrappers lettered in silver bound in. A little rubbing to extremities, central vertical crease where originally folded by Archer, wrappers with inevitable marginal fading, an excellent copy. First edition, trade issue, one of 600 copies thus (there were 50 on handmade paper), presentation copy to the influential drama critic William Archer (1856-1924): inscribed by Wilde on the half-title "William Archer, with the author's compliments, Feby 93." A superb association. The play was published on 22 February 1893, to be blasted the next day by The Times as "morbid, bizarre, repulsive," though admittedly "vigorously written in some parts". Archer, who championed Ibsen and the New Drama, had been the only major critic, except for Shaw, to attack the prior decision of the Examiner of Plays not to license Salomé. Calling the Examiner "the Great Irresponsible", Archer defended the play as "a serious work of art" in a letter to the Pall Mall Gazette (1 July 1892, reprinted in Letters of Oscar Wilde, ed. Hart-Davis, p. 317; see Wilde's letter of appreciation to Archer in Letters, p. 319). Wilde wrote to Archer on publication date to "hope you have received Salome in her Tyrian purple and fading silver …", but had to write to his publishers the following month to give them a nudge that Archer, among other intended recipients, had not actually received his promised copy yet. When Archer finally received his copy and put his review of the play into print, in Black and White (11 May 1893), it was a rave: "I have read Salomé twice in two hours; in other words, I have added two hours to the tale of that life within our life, which alone, in the long run, is really worth living - the life of the imagination. Hypnotised by the poet - for what is the magic of poetry but a form of hypnotism? - I have lived through … 'the loveliest thing in the world - a drama in the air.' … There is at least as much musical as pictorial quality in Salomé. It is by methods borrowed from music that Mr. Wilde, without sacrificing its suppleness, imparts to his prose the firm texture, so to speak, of verse … Salomé has all the qualities of a great historical picture - pedantry and conventionality excepted. Its suppression by the Censor was perfectly ridiculous, and absolutely inevitable … The atmosphere of the play is certainly none of the healthiest; but if an artist sets forth to paint a fever jungle, we can scarcely complain if his picture be not altogether breezy and exhilarating. As well look for a bracing sirocco or a tonic miasma. Salomé is an oriental Hedda Gabler; and who could portray such a character in the hues of radiant health?