"Anything but a Misprint": Comments on an Oscar Wilde Typescript

Abstract

When the Anglo-Irish playwright Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) quipped that poet can survive anything but a misprint, he wrote from the heart. A richly annotated typescript of Wilde's play entitled An Ideal Husband shows to what extent Wilde hoped to safeguard his own survival. Long recognized as the printer's copy typescript, this unique holding in the Lewis Collection at Texas Christian University warrants study because it affords insight into how Wilde wrote, how he undertook later stages of revision, and how he crafted a fusion of text and gesture in creating this major success of the 1890s. The writing of An Ideal Husband started in June 1893 at Goring-onThames and proceeded until 19 February 1894, when the final typescript was apparently completed by Mrs. Marshall's typing service on the Strand. The play was offered to John Hare at the Garrick Theatre, but Hare rejected it because of his dissatisfaction with the fourth act. Then Wilde presented the script to Lewis Waller and H. H. Morell at the Haymarket Theatre. They immediately contracted to produce the play. Rehearsals started in December, and the play opened on 3 January 1895 to exuberant audience, including the Prince of Wales who approved all four acts. An Ideal Husband ran for 111 performances until it was taken off on 6 April 1895, the day after Wilde's arrest. The play began its New York run on 12 March 1895. A literary who's who reviewed the play on both continents. Despite the play's stock plot and implausible antecedent actions, George Bernard Shaw acceded, In a certain sense Mr. Wilde is to me our only thorough playwright. He plays with everything: with wit, with philosophy, with drama, with actors and audience, with the whole theatre. Shaw described Wilde as an arch-artist who was