Oscar Wilde’s Lost Play

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 236, 24 December 1927, Page 20

Oscar Wilde’s Lost Play

Now in New York HOW IT WAS FOUND “The Duchess of Padua,” Oscar Wilde’s play, has long been doubly famous because of the mystery of the whereabouts of the original manuscript. Now it is reported that the complete MS. of the work has turned up in New York. It was taken there by George Arliss, the actor. So far as is known, this is the second important MS. by Wilde to go to America, the other being that of “The Picture of Dorian Gray.” “Dorian. Gray” is in the J. P. Morgan collection. Story of Lost MS. Mr. Arliss has turned his property in the Wilde MS. over to Mr. Mitchell Kennerly, president of the Anderson Galieries. It seems that while Arliss was returning to America last year on a liner on which Kennerly was also a passenger, the manuscript of the “Duchess of Padua” play was mentioned casually in conversation. Mr. Arliss remained that he owned it, and finally found it at his country ! place in Kent. It is a work of 226 manuscript pages, only slightly yellowed in the 44 years since it was written. __ How it came into his possession is related by Mr. Arliss as follows: “In 1882, when Oscar Wilde was lecturing in America, he met the famous actress, Mary Anderson, and agreed to write a play for her. “They drew up a contract by which Miss Anderson was to pay the author £2OO down and £BOO more on her accepting the play. “Wilde returned shortly afterwards to Paris. In 1883 he completed the play. Twenty copies were to be printed for private circulation. “Wilde was at that time acquainted with a printer of Bloomsbury named William Arliss Andrews. When the copies were completed the MS. was apparently forgotten, and it lay on a shelf in the printing shop until it came into the possession of the printer & son, now known as George Arliss, who stored it away.” The play was never acted by Mary Anderson, but was produced in New York in 1891.