A.J.A. Symons Collection on Oscar Wilde
Scope and Contents
This collection contains material related to Oscar Wilde from the collection of A.J.A. Symons, including both Symons' own creative and scholarly work, as well as items gathered in the course of his research. Items include corrected proofs, typescripts, and items originally from the collection of Christopher Millard.
A large number of letters and other items originally acquired as a part of this collection have already been cataloged separately and can be found through the Clark Library's finding aids to the Wilde circle. More information about this collection and its acquisition are detailed in the provenance note in this finding aid; there is also a scan of the original collection inventory from 1965 attached here as a supplement, as well as multiple paper copies in Box 1/Folder 3.
Dates
- Creation: 1894-1965
Creator
Conditions Governing Access
This collection is open to researchers.
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.
Biographical Note
Alphonse James Albert Symons (pronounced Simmons) was born 16 August 1900 in London. After a brief apprenticeship as a furrier in his teens, Symons largely worked as a writer. In 1922, he founded the First Edition Club, bibliographical and bibliophilic dining club, which established Book-Collector's Quarterly in 1930. Symons published and researched several bibliographies throughout the 1920s and 1930s, and in 1934, published his best-known work, The Quest for Corvo, a genre-bending biography that included Symons' own journey to understand his subject, Frederick Rolfe (aka Baron Corvo). In 1933, he and André L. Simon established the Wine and Food Society. Before his death, Symons had been working on a biography of Oscar Wilde and corresponded with many of the members of Wilde's circle who were still living at the time.
A.J.A. Symons died of heart failure in 1941. His younger brother Julian Symons published a biography of him in 1950.
(Information above from Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and Wikipedia entries for A.J.A. Symons)
Extent
.5 Linear feet (1 box)
Language of Materials
English
Abstract
Material related to Oscar Wilde from the collection of A.J.A. Symons, including both Symons' own creative and scholarly work, as well as items gathered in the course of his research.
Physical Location
Clark Library.
Provenance
The items in this collection were acquired directly from A.J.A. Symons' brother Julian Symons in 1966 (accession MS.1966.009). Julian Symons compiled a detailed inventory of the collection before the Clark's acquisition, which is included here in Box 1/Folder 3, and also as a scanned appendix to this finding aid.
Upon arrival at the Clark Library in 1966, nearly all materials were separated and filed alphabetically, with no notes were made about their original provenance. All of the correspondence and other materials acquired as a part of this collection -- with the exception of items inventoried in this finding aid -- were cataloged separately sometime before about 2008, and are described in several of the Clark Library's finding aids to Oscar Wilde and His Circle (especially the guides to correspondence, Wildeiana, and manuscripts).
Beginning in 2024, Clark staff have attempted to virtually reunite Symons' collection on Wilde by inserting provenance notes in the library's finding aids for each item described in the 1965 Julian Symons inventory. These items can be found by full-text searching for the accession number MS.1966.009.
Many of the items in the Symons collection were previously in the collection of (or composed by) Christopher Millard.
Processing History
This collection was processed and described in July 2024 by Rebecca Fenning Marschall.
Subject
- Wilde, Oscar, 1854-1900 (Person)
- Title
- A.J.A. Symons Collection on Oscar Wilde
- Author
- Finding aid by Rebecca Fenning Marschall
- Date
- 2024
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Repository Details
Part of the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library Repository