Beschreibung:

WILDE, Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills (1854-1900). Autograph letter signed ("Oscar Wilde") to Mr. [Wemyss] Reid of the publishers Cassell & Co., London, n.d. [?late 1877]. 3 full pages, 8vo, on printed stationery of "Woman's World, La Belle Sauvage...London," with circular publisher's device . WILDE AS EDITOR OF "WOMAN'S WORLD." "Madame Dieulafoy the well-known female explorer has offered, in answer to a request of mine to write four illustrated articles for Woman's World for 16 guineas an article: I wd. be content with two , or with one if necessary, but wish to know if the House [the publishing house] wd. approve of so large a sum being paid to a writer. She of course contributes drawings and unpublished photographs, so I think it shd. attract much notice from every one. I enclose her letter. Yours faithfully..." In the Spring of 1887 Wilde had reached agreement with Reid and the publishers, Cassell & Co., to take on the task of editing a new monthly described as "a magazine of fashion and society," aimed at the modern woman. It had been launched in November 1886 under the title "Lady's World." At Wilde's insistence the title was changed to "Woman's World," which he deemed "more appropriate to a magazine that aims at being the organ of women of intellect, culture and position" (Hart-Davis, Letters , p.203). Wilde officially took the post of editor in June 1887: "I am resolved to throw myself into this thing," he wrote Reid ( ibid. , p.197), and for the next two years he energetically recruited fiction and non-fiction contributions from a wide range of authors; he himself contributed a regular column of "Literary and other Notes" to each issue. In October 1889 Wilde resigned as editor; the magazine had folded by October 1890. The publishers may indeed have had doubts about the high price Wilde mentions, for no article by Jeanne Paule Henriette Rachel Dieulafoy (1851-1916), an archeologist and author, ever appeared in Woman's World . Published in More Letters of Oscar Wilde , ed. R. Hart-Davis, p.72