The South Australian Register - Saturday, October 5, 1895
This report was originally published in English. Machine translations may be available in other languages.
LONDON ECHOES.
[BY OXONIAN.]
London. August 30.
Whatever other qualities Mr. Oscar Wilde may have possessed, he was evidently a poor hand at driving a bargain, if we are to judge by the utterly inadequate fees he received for his plays. Mr. Wilde was in the very first flight of English dramatists, but I feel pretty certain that none of his compeers would have accepted the terms which are described in the bankruptcy proceedings. The accounts furnished by Mr. Wilde knock the bottom out of the stories printed at the time of the trial to the effect that he was in receipt of an enormous income from his books and plays. The amount I remember was given in one paper at £25,000 a year! I notice, by-the-way, that in referring to the unfortunate dramatist, a contemporary calls him — perhaps unintentionally — "the late Mr. Oscar Wilde."
Whatever other qualities Mr. Oscar Wilde may have possessed, he was evidently a poor hand at driving a bargain, if we are to judge by the utterly inadequate fees he received for his plays. Mr. Wilde was in the very first flight of English dramatists, but I feel pretty certain that none of his compeers would have accepted the terms which are described in the bankruptcy proceedings. The accounts furnished by Mr. Wilde knock the bottom out of the stories printed at the time of the trial to the effect that he was in receipt of an enormous income from his books and plays. The amount I remember was given in one paper at £25,000 a year! I notice, by-the-way, that in referring to the unfortunate dramatist, a contemporary calls him — perhaps unintentionally — "the late Mr. Oscar Wilde."
Whatever other qualities Mr. Oscar Wilde may have possessed, he was evidently a poor hand at driving a bargain, if we are to judge by the utterly inadequate fees he received for his plays. Mr. Wilde was in the very first flight of English dramatists, but I feel pretty certain that none of his compeers would have accepted the terms which are described in the bankruptcy proceedings. The accounts furnished by Mr. Wilde knock the bottom out of the stories printed at the time of the trial to the effect that he was in receipt of an enormous income from his books and plays. The amount I remember was given in one paper at £25,000 a year! I notice, by-the-way, that in referring to the unfortunate dramatist, a contemporary calls him — perhaps unintentionally — "the late Mr. Oscar Wilde."
By permission of the Home Secretary, Mr. Robert Sherard, who was present on the last day of the Central Criminal Court proceedings and who came from Paris to give evidence, has been allowed to visit Oscar Wilde in prison. He found him in good health and hopeful spirits though "feeling" in the language of the newspaper reporter "his position acutely." His chief grievance seems to be that he is allowed only one book a week, which in the case of a man who has nothing between him and madness, but the safety valve of reading, seems a needlessly severe regulation. Still, as Mr. Wilde will probably be in prison for a year and eight months, supporting him to earn the maximum of good conduct marks which entitle a prisoner to a reduction of 25 percent, in his sentence, loss the first nine months, to have read eighty books which he might not otherwise have looked at will not be a valueless achievement.
By permission of the Home Secretary, Mr. Robert Sherard, who was present on the last day of the Central Criminal Court proceedings and who came from Paris to give evidence, has been allowed to visit Oscar Wilde in prison. He found him in good health and hopeful spirits though "feeling" in the language of the newspaper reporter "his position acutely." His chief grievance seems to be that he is allowed only one book a week, which in the case of a man who has nothing between him and madness, but the safety valve of reading, seems a needlessly severe regulation. Still, as Mr. Wilde will probably be in prison for a year and eight months, supporting him to earn the maximum of good conduct marks which entitle a prisoner to a reduction of 25 percent, in his sentence, loss the first nine months, to have read eighty books which he might not otherwise have looked at will not be a valueless achievement.
By permission of the Home Secretary, Mr. Robert Sherard, who was present on the last day of the Central Criminal Court proceedings and who came from Paris to give evidence, has been allowed to visit Oscar Wilde in prison. He found him in good health and hopeful spirits though "feeling" in the language of the newspaper reporter "his position acutely." His chief grievance seems to be that he is allowed only one book a week, which in the case of a man who has nothing between him and madness, but the safety valve of reading, seems a needlessly severe regulation. Still, as Mr. Wilde will probably be in prison for a year and eight months, supporting him to earn the maximum of good conduct marks which entitle a prisoner to a reduction of 25 percent, in his sentence, loss the first nine months, to have read eighty books which he might not otherwise have looked at will not be a valueless achievement.