Father Cuthbert Dunne Collection on Oscar Wilde

Collection

Identifier: MS.1973.016

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

This collection contains Father Cuthbert Dunne's memoirs, letters, research files, and ephemera related to the death of Oscar Wilde. A large portion of the collection consists of various drafts of Father Dunne's memoirs about attending to Wilde on his deathbed, presumably much of it written between 1945-1950, when Dunne sought, after many years of silence, to correct the publicly circulating stories about Wilde's conversion and death. In addition to letters from 1945-1950 to Daniel A. Lord, Father Edmund Burke, C.P., and others, this collection includes correspondence and other materials dating to Wilde's illness and death in 1900. Dunne kept calling cards from Robert Ross (one of which has the "sick-call" request for a priest to visit Wilde's bedside written on the verso), and letters from Ross, Vyvyan Holland, and Father Joseph Brown of Stonyhurst College.

Before Dunne's death in November 1950, he gave most of his Wilde papers to colleague Father Edmund Burke. Several letters from 1950-1957 from Burke's collection are also included here.

Dates

Creation: 1900-1957

Creator

Dunne, Cuthbert, Father, 1869-1950 (Person)
Burke, Edmund, Father (Person)

Conditions Governing Use

The Clark Library owns the property rights to its collections but does not hold the copyright to these materials and therefore cannot grant or deny permission to use them. Researchers are responsible for determining the copyright status of any materials they may wish to use, investigating the owner of the copyright, and obtaining permission for their intended publication or other use. In all cases, you must cite the Clark Library as the source with the following credit line: The William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California, Los Angeles.

Conditions Governing Use

Collection is open for research.

Biographical Note

Father Cuthbert Dunne, C.P. was an Irish Passionist priest born in Dublin, Ireland in 1869. In 1900, he was officiating at St. Joseph's Church on Avenue Hoche in Paris, when Robert Ross came to request a priest to visit Oscar Wilde's bedside at the Hotel d'Alsace. Father Dunne baptised Wilde, and adminstered the last rites before his death; he also later officiated at Wilde's funeral. Dunne did not speak publicly about Wilde's death until 1945, when he finally responded to inaccurate portrayals of Wilde in a pamphlet titled "The Pure of Heart" by Rev. Daniel A. Lord. Dunne died in Dublin November 4, 1950.

Sources Consulted:

* Rev. Edmund Burke, "Oscar Wilde: The Final Scene," The London Magazine (May 1961): pages 37-43.

* Materials within this collection.

Extent

1 box (5 linear inches)

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Abstract

This collection contains Father Cuthbert Dunne's collection of papers related to the death of Oscar Wilde and consist of his memoirs of officiating at Wilde's deathbed conversion, correspondence, and transcriptions of newspaper accounts.

Provenance

Purchase, Zeitlin and Ver Brugge, May 1973 (from Christie's London auction, April 4, 1973, lot 239). Previously in the collection of Rupert Croft-Cooke.

Additional notes and descriptions of this collection (both bookseller/auction descriptions as well as notes possibly dating to Croft-Cooke's acquisition) are included in Box 1/Folder 1.