Pornographic novel - circle of Oscar Wilde
Teleny, or the Reverse of the Medal
£3,528
Rare Books, Manuscripts, Maps & Photographs
Auction: 21 June 2023 at 11:00 BST
Description
A Physiological Romance for Today. Cosmopoli [probably Paris: Renaudie], 1906. 2 volumes in one, square 8vo (17.2 x 13cm), contemporary half japon, [4] 148, [4] 178 pp., title-pages printed in red and black, half-titles with limitation statements verso, endpapers renewed, wear to extremities, contents toned, title-pages and early leaves of each volume browned, volume 1 with repaired closed tears to margins of title-page and p. 20/21 and 21/22, pp. 129/30 with repaired tear through text, volume 2 title-page with ink-stamp 'London 1922' verso, pp. 31/2 with slight marginal loss, pp. 65 with repaired tear through text [Peter Mendes, Clandestine Erotic Fiction in English 1800-1930, 87-B]
Footnote
Note:
Second edition, one of 200 copies, extremely rare, with no other copy traced in auction records, and one copy traced in institutions, at the British Library.
First published in 1893 by Leonard Smithers, Teleny was the first novel in English 'in which the main story was concerned with homosexuality at its fullest extent [that is, in sexually explicit terms] ... The author, or authors, of Teleny were alone in their day in England in attempting to record the special atmosphere of homosexual intrigue and the emotions of men involved in … a liaison' (Reade, Sexual Heretics: Male Homosexuality in English Literature from 1850 to 1900, 1970, pp. 49-50).
Charles Hirsch, owner of the Librairie Parisienne in London, recalled in his introduction to a French translation published in the 1930s that the manuscript was originally deposited at his shop by Oscar Wilde sometime in 1890. Wilde left instructions that the sealed parcel be held until requested by one of his friends, presenting his calling card. The process was repeated several times, with the parcel being retrieved and returned by different callers before finally being returned to Wilde. The extent of Wilde's personal contribution to the text has been debated, but the work is now thought to be the work of a number of authors in his circle, composing the text in the round-robin tradition (see Nelson, Publisher to the Decadents: Leonard Smithers in the Careers of Beardsley, Wilde, Dowson, 2000 pp. 34-6).