читать дальшеIn the preface to his only novel, “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” Oscar Wilde famously proclaimed that “all art is quite useless.” The statement seemed so intriguing to a contemporary, an Oxford University student named Bernulf Clegg, that in 1891 he wrote Wilde asking him where in his other work he “may find developed that idea of the total uselessness of all art.”
Wilde, not directly answering Clegg’s question, responded: “Art is useless because its aim is simply to create a mood. It is not meant to instruct or influence action in any way. It is superbly sterile, and the note of its pleasure is sterility.” The letters of Wilde and Clegg, along with some 50 handwritten pages, including nine manuscripts of Wilde’s poems and the earliest surviving letter from Wilde to his lover Lord Alfred Douglas, are contained in a red leatherbound volume that was recently given to the Morgan Library and Museum by Lucia Moreira Salles, a Brazilian philanthropist who had owned it for more than two decades. Its whereabouts were unknown to scholars for half a century.
читать дальше“The contents are remarkable,” said William M. Griswold, director of the Morgan. He added that the gift was particularly significant because, in addition to its collection of letters by Wilde, the Morgan also owns the earliest manuscript of “The Picture of Dorian Gray.”
Mr. Griswold said he learned of the volume’s existence shortly after Christine Nelson, a curator of manuscripts at the Morgan, was contacted by Merlin Holland, Wilde’s only grandson, who has written several books about his grandfather. Mr. Holland was well known at the Morgan, which in 2001 organized the exhibition “Oscar Wilde: A Life in Six Acts,” in collaboration with the British Library.
Mrs. Moreira Salles owned the volume with her husband, Walter Moreira Salles, a Brazilian banker and diplomat who died in 2001. The book includes a manuscript of Wilde’s short story for children “The Selfish Giant,” handwritten by Wilde’s wife, Constance.
About two years ago Mrs. Moreira Salles contacted Mr. Holland to see if he would be interested in editing a facsimile of the book. He in turn told her about the Morgan’s extensive holdings of Wilde’s letters and manuscripts. This summer, Mrs. Moreira Salles decided to donate the book to the Morgan.
“It was one of those happy surprises,” Ms. Nelson said. “It was last seen in a 1953 London sale catalog.”
The Morgan plans to show the volume in an exhibition of acquisitions from April 17 to Aug. 9.