Beschreibung:

WILDE, Oscar. Autograph manuscript prose fragment of a tale or children's fable, n.p., n.d. [1880s?]. 1 page, folio, 329 x 202mm., integral blank with one-word inscription by Wilde: "adalloggiare," first leaf with chip in lower margin, two marginal tears repaired, the sheets carefully tipped to a protective sheet. A FRAGMENT OF AN UNPUBLISHED CHILDREN'S FAIRY TALE? A very intriguing fragment, whose text breaks off once (perhaps where a line of dialogue was meant to be inserted) and is incomplete at the end (in the middle of a line, leaving ample blank paper). The tone and content are strongly evocative of Wilde's well-known children's tales, many of which began as improvised bedtime stories he narrated to his two children, some of which were collected in The Happy Prince and Other Tales (London: Nutt, 1888), dedicated to his friend Carlos Blacker and illustrated by Jacomb Hood and Walter Crane The present fragment, in Wilde's "Greek and gracious" hand reads: "Every morning the Poet person went out, to the gate of the city, and went into the waste land and wandered through it. And at evening he returned to the city and the people met him at the gate and said to him what...And he told them of wonderful things, saying that he had seen them. Now one day as he was sitting..." It is unclear whether "adaloggiare" was intended as a title or was simply an unrelated word noted by Wilde, since it appears at the bottom of the page.