A Woman of No Importance. by WILDE, Oscar - 1903

Paris: [Privately printed by Leonard Smithers,], 1903. Octavo. Original pink cloth, titles blocked in blind to rounded spine. Occasional pencil annotations to text. Spine gently rolled and browned, minor wear to extremities, boards lightly soiled, two tiny punctures to foot of front cover, light foxing to endpapers and occasionally to text; a very good copy. Leonard Smithers's pirated edition, number 184 of 250 copies. An impressive literary association copy with the ownership inscription of the playwright St John Hankin to the front free endpaper, "St John Hankin, Campden, Glos.". This copy also has the pencil annotations and ownership inscription of Roger Senhouse to the front free endpaper, "1st 1894, Paris edition, Roger Senhouse. Curious errors & some transpositions - mostly marked. What are American any goods? American novels, 11/2 All women become like their mother, 143 - He can have Ashbuby or What more can a gentleman desire in this world?", adding beneath Hankin's inscription, "Martin Secker published his 'Complete Dramatic Works 3 vols. 1912". A well-regarded author, and son-in-law to George Routledge, Hankin (1869-1909) has been described as "a successor of Oscar Wilde" due to the satirisation of class-consciousness apparent in his plays (Weiss, The Diabolical Comedist As We (Should) Know Him). Roger Senhouse (1899-1970) was a prominent member of the Bloomsbury Group and in 1935 became co-owner with Fredric Warburg of the publishing house Secker & Warburg. In addition to his comments on the front free endpaper Senhouse has made 19 further pencil annotations to the text. This edition uses the text of the first edition, published by the Bodley Head in 1894 (Mason 364).