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Forgeries from "Pierre Louÿs", 1920-1922

 Series
Identifier: Series 2.

Scope and Content

From the File:

This collection contains manuscript materials that have been confirmed as or strongly suspected of being forgeries of Oscar Wilde's work, in addition to legal and other materials related to such forgeries. Materials described here date largely from the 1920s and include forged literary manuscripts and correspondence said to be from Wilde, correspondence regarding forged materials, legal documents, news clippings and booksellers' catalogs.

Series 1 and 2 below contain materials thought to be composed by the same forger or group of forgers, going by the name Dorian Hope. In 1921, London antiquarian booksellers Maggs Bros. and Dublin booksellers Hodges Figgis were both offered previously unknown Wilde manuscripts from people posing as Pierre Louÿs and André Gide (respectively). Dorian Hope posed as an intermediary between the booksellers,"Louÿs" and "Gide." Though the materials related to Hodges Figgis' dealings with Hope/"Gide" are included in this collection, Maggs Bros. still retains their archive of forged Wilde materials and correspondence from "Louÿs" -- the materials described below are photocopies from their collections.

Series 3 contains material related to Mrs. Chan-Toon (née Mabel Cosgrove) and For the love of the king, a Burma-themed play that she alleged Wilde had written for her in the 1890s. Christopher Millard, Wilde's bibliographer, was sued for libel in 1926 by her publishers Methuen and Co., and he assembled an exhaustive dossier of his evidence and of the court proceedings.

Dates

  • Creation: 1920-1922

Creator

Access

Collection is open for research.

Extent

From the File: 5 boxes

Language of Materials

From the File: English

Custodial History

Documents collected in this series are photocopies of material held by Maggs Bros. antiquarian booksellers in London. In 1921, they were approached by a figure posing as Pierre Louys who offered them several manuscripts purported to be by Oscar Wilde. This archive comprises photocopies of the forged documents as well as correspondence between Maggs and the forgers.

General

Cataloged in the UCLA Library catalog

Originally cataloged as W6721M2 S171 [ca. 1921] Boxed

Repository Details

Part of the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library Repository

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