The Standard Union - Thursday, April 11, 1895
This report was originally published in English. Machine translations may be available in other languages.
WILDE'S BOOKS.
THEY ARE UNLIKELY TO BE RE-
MOVED FROM THE BROOKLYN LI-
BRARY.
The action of the City Library of St. Louis and the Free Library of Newark, N.J., in withdrawing from their shelves all books written by Oscar Wilde that may happen to be there is drawing some ridicule upon those institutions.
The opinion most generally expressed is that the books are no worse now that Wilde's personal wickedness is exposed than they were before; and if they contained nothing harmful when placed there, they have not been made harmful by the recent disclosures of the man's character.
Willis A. Bardwell, librarian of the Brooklyn Library, smiled when the Standard Union reporter asked him what he thought of the action of the two libraries named.
"They are only advertising Wilde’s books," he said. "If they don't want people to read them it would have been better for them to have let the matter alone. A man’s character does not necessarily affect his books, however, and if a work that is good in itself, or harmless, is to be condemned because a cloud comes over the reputation of its author, there would be no knowing where to begin or end the process of weeding out. The best way to create a demand for a bad book is to make it known that it is bad. If a bad book happens to find its way into a library collection it is easy to withdraw it without making a fuss about it.
"As to Wilde’s books there are but a few of them in the Brooklyn Library, and there is no apparent reason why they should be withdrawn from circulation. Some of them are books for the young, and none of them are recent. We have bought none of his recent works, and, of course, would buy none now. But it isn't at all likely that it will be necessary to destroy or hide those which we have."
By examination of the catalogues the reporter found that there are only six volumes of Wilde's writings in the library. These are: "Intentions," a collection of essays; "Poems," published in 1881; "The Happy Prince and Other Tales"; "House of Pomegranates"; "Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime, and Other Stories"; and "The Young King, the Star Child."