An Ideal Husband.: By the Author of Lady Windermere's Fan.

London: Leonard Smithers and Co.,, 1899. I really think it reads the best of my plays First edition, one of 1,000 trade copies. This political comedy premiered at the Haymarket on 3 January 1895 and ran until 6 April. Wilde's arrest the day before the production closed precipitated his "utter social destruction" (ODNB) and the play was not published in book form until two years after his release from prison. An Ideal Husband led George Bernard Shaw to hail Wilde as "our only thorough playwright. He plays with everything: with wit, with philosophy, with drama, with actors and audience, with the whole theatre" (Saturday Review, 12 January 1895). Wilde himself wrote to the publisher stating that "I really think it reads the best of my plays" (cited in Nelson, p. 392). The edition comprised 1,000 trade copies, 100 signed copies on large paper, and 12 on Japanese vellum reserved for presentation. This copy is from the significant theatre collection of Clive Hirschhorn (b. 1940), who spent decades as the Sunday Express's film and theatre critic and whose various histories of Hollywood include The Warner Bros. Story (1978) and The Hollywood Musical (1981). Hirschhorn's ownership inscription is pencilled on the front pastedown. Small quarto. Original pink linen with gilt floral motifs after designs by Charles Shannon, spine lettered in gilt, fore and bottom edges uncut. Housed in custom red cloth folding box. Shelflabel on front pastedown. Lightly faded spine with nick and bump to ends, covers notably bright, presenting handsomely, offsetting and splash marks to prelims from prior removal of bookplate, shallow tear to top edge of title page from rough opening. A very good copy. Mason 385. James G. Nelson, Publisher to the Decadents: Leonard Smithers in the Careers of Beardsley, Wilde, Dowson, 2000.