New Preface to "The Life and Confessions of Oscar Wilde" - Rare Book Insider
New Preface to "The Life and Confessions of Oscar Wilde"

Frank Harris; Lord Alfred Douglas

New Preface to “The Life and Confessions of Oscar Wilde”

The Fortune Press, London: 1925
  • $98
The first edition of the additional preface intended to address Lord Alfred Douglas's criticisms of Frank Harris's biography of Oscar Wilde. The first edition of this work.Douglas was displeased with the suggestion made in Harris's biography that Douglas and Wilde had committed sodomy.Douglas had grown increasingly bitter about his relationship with Wilde and was eager to clear his name. Harris and Douglas aimed to clarify the nature of his relationship with Douglas. The preface is filled with recriminations, reflecting Douglas's hostility towards Wilde, and his desire to distance himself from the more scandalous aspects of Wilde's story.The "New Preface" was controversial, and did little to rehabilitate Douglas's reputation. In the publisher's original cloth binding. Bumping to back strip head and tail, with light fraying to cloth at back strip head. Internally, firmly bound. Pages clean and bright. Very Good Indeed
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The Merchant of Prato: Francesco di Marco Datini

Iris Origo A fascinating and beautifully illustrated biography of the Italian merchant Francesco Datini, whose private and business papers offer a valuable record of medieval trade. The first edition of this work in the publisher's original cloth binding, with the original unclipped dust wrapper. Illustrated with a colour frontispiece, three further colour plates, and twenty-one black and white illustrations. Collated, complete. Iris Origo's biography of Francesco Datini, an Italian merchant of Prato who is notable for having implemented the first partnership system in business in 1383. When he died in 1410, he left instructions to preserve all of his private business papers; and so they were, in a remarkable and unique collection of about one hundred and fifty thousand letters, more than five hundred ledgers and account books, as well as numerous insurance policies, bills of exchange, and much more. Origo presents the human side of those papers, creating a vivid picture of the man that was Francesco Datini, and the life he led in a fourteenth-century Italy. In the publisher's original cloth binding, with the original unclipped dust wrapper. Externally, cloth is in lovely condition. Internally, firmly bound. Pages are bright and clean. Dust wrapper is smart, though sunned to the spine with a scattering of spots to the panels and a little chipping to the head and tail of the spine. Three small tape repairs to the reverse of the wrap. Fine
  • $129