FROM THE PREFACE.........The contents of this volume require some explanation of an historical nature.  It is scarcely realised by the present generation that Wilde’s works on their first appearance, with the exception of De Profundis, were met wi ... Read more

FROM THE PREFACE.........The contents of this volume require some explanation of an historical nature.  It is scarcely realised by the present generation that Wilde’s works on their first appearance, with the exception of De Profundis, were met with almost general condemnation and ridicule.  The plays on their first production were grudgingly praised because their obvious success could not be ignored; but on their subsequent publication in book form they were violently assailed.  That nearly all of them have held the stage is still a source of irritation among certain journalists.  Salomé however enjoys a singular career.  As every one knows, it was prohibited by the Censor when in rehearsal by Madame Bernhardt at the Palace Theatre in 1892.  On its publication in 1893 it was greeted with greater abuse than any other of Wilde’s works, and was consigned to the usual irrevocable oblivion.  The accuracy of the French was freely canvassed, and of course it is obvious that the French is not that of a Frenchman.  The play was passed for press, however, by no less a writer than Marcel Schwob whose letter to the Paris publisher, returning the proofs and mentioning two or three slight alterations, is still in my possession.  Marcel Schwob told me some years afterwards that he thought it would have spoiled the spontaneity and character of Wilde’s style if he had tried to harmonise it with the diction demanded by the French Academy.  It was never composed with any idea of presentation.  Madame Bernhardt happened to say she wished Wilde would write a play for her; he replied in jest that he had done so.  She insisted on seeing the manuscript, and decided on its immediate production, ignorant or forgetful of the English law which prohibits the introduction of Scriptural characters on the stage.  With his keen sense of the theatre Wilde would never have contrived the long speech of Salomé at the end in a drama intended for the stage, even in the days of long speeches.  His threat to change his nationality shortly after the Censor’s interference called forth a most delightful and good-natured caricature of him by Mr. Bernard Partridge in Punch. Less