The Cincinnati Enquirer - Tuesday, May 28, 1895
This report was originally published in English. Machine translations may be available in other languages.
HER VIEW OF OSCAR.
Mrs. Frank Leslie, in a letter to THE ENQUIRER, says:
"You have unwittingly, I am sure, done me a great injustice in reprinting an alleged interview with me published in a New York Sunday paper. It is true that I have leased the business direction of my publishing house; true also that I sell for Europe this month, as I have done every May for the past 10 years for my summer vacation, but I am not going 'for the purpose of comforting Lady Wilde.' I severed my connection with the family over two years ago for good and sufficient reasons. My sense of justice prompted me when interviewed recently to speak of Oscar Wilde as I knew him—as son, husband, father and friend—in other words, to do what we would all wish done for us, i.e., to dwell upon the good and not the evil that is in us. I can only infer that my generosity must have been misconstrued."
Mrs. Frank Leslie says: "It is true that I have leased the business direction of my publishing house; true also that I sail for Europe this month, as I have done every May for the past ten years for my summer vacation, but I am not going ‘for the purpose of comforting Lady Wilde.' I severed my connection with the family over two years ago for good and sufficient reasons. My sense of justice prompted me when interviewed recently to speak of Oscar Wilde as I knew him - as son, husband, father and friend. I expect to return in early September to my editorial duties."
Mrs. Leslie denies emphatically that there was any truth in the interview, and adds:
"I expect to return in early September to my editorial duties, and do not wish meantime to appear ridiculous in the eyes of your readers."