Lot 8: ARNOLD, MATTHEW.

Selected Poems. Macmillan and Co., 1878

Condition Note: 8vo, first edition, presentation copy inscribed by oscar wilde ("Nellie Sickert | from | her friend | Oscar Wilde. | October 2 | 1879.") on half-title, original blue cloth, upper cover with gilt border enclosing central figure, spine lettered in gilt, morocco solander box, slight spotting to a few margins, upper hinge cracked

Helena Marie Sickert (later Mrs Swanwick), presentation inscription; J.O. Edwards, book-label

Helena Marie Sickert, later Mrs Swanwick (1864-1939), younger sister of Walter Sickert, was a writer and advocate of women's rights, becoming the first president of the Women's International League in 1915. She was a close friend of Wilde's, being one of his principal correspondents when he was on tour in America in 1882. In her autobiography (I Have Been Young, 1935), she writes of Wilde's friendship and his gift of this book. "He was the first of our friends to call me Miss Nellie...He discussed books with me and gave me my first book of poetry, Selected Poems of Matthew Arnold, marking his favourites."

The letter which Wilde wrote to her, dated 2 October 1879, reads: "Dear Miss Nellie, Though you are determined to go to Cambridge, I hope you will accept this volume of poems by a purely Oxford poet. I am sure you know Matthew Arnold already but still I have marked just a few of the things I like best in the collection, in hope that we may agree about them. 'Sohrab and Rustum' is a wonderfully stately epic, full of the spirit of Homer, and 'Thyrsis' and 'The Scholar Gipsy' are exquisite idylls, as artistic as 'Lycidas' or 'Adonais': but indeed I think all is good in it, and I hope you will accept it, filiaV mnhmosunon [as a memento of friendship], from your sincere friend". (Complete Letters, p.83).

Wilde has marked nine poems with bright blue silk threads for the attention of Nellie Sickert. This lovely insight into Wilde's relationship with the work of another poet is also a charming memento of a life-long friendship.