WILDE (OSCAR) Autograph letter signed with initials ('OW') to Henry Davray ('My Dear Davray'), saying he is at Nogent and returning proofs, asking him to see that '...the stanzas of six lines are marked by an interval - also that the 'In Memoriam' is not omitted...', on mourning paper, docketed in pencil and biro on reverse, one page on a bifolium, dust-staining, creased at folds, 8vo (200 x 125mm.), Nogent-sur-Marne, [n.d. but June/July 1898] Footnotes: OSCAR WILDE SENDS PROOF CORRECTIONS OF 'THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL' TO HIS FRENCH TRANSLATOR, AN UNPUBLISHED LETTER. The French edition of The Ballad of Reading Gaol with parallel text in English and French came out in 1898, the same year as the English edition, translated by the recipient of our letter, the critic and writer Henry Davray (1873-1944), who was in charge of foreign literature for the Mercure de France. Davray had written a letter of appreciation to Wilde in March 1898, and Wilde responded by agreeing for him to undertake the French translation, writing subsequently to send him a copy of the second edition (see Complete Letters, pp.1028, 1032). Wilde described him as 'a charming fellow besides being a good English scholar', although complained to Robbie Ross that, as Davray had never been incarcerated, he knew nothing of prison colloquialisms and was therefore encountering problems with the translation (Complete Letters, pp.1051-1052). Davray attended Wilde's funeral in 1900 and published his reminiscences as Oscar Wilde: La Tragédie Finale in 1927. Here Wilde writes to him with more proof corrections, stressing that the 'In Memoriam' (to his dedicatee 'C.T.W.') should not be omitted, which may allude to the publication of the French translation in the April 1897 edition of Mercure de France, where the 'In Memoriam' had been left out. The mysterious dedicatee of The Ballad of Reading Gaol, 'C.T.W.', was Charles Thomas Wooldridge (1864-1896), a trooper in the Royal Horse Guards and fellow inmate who was executed whilst Wilde was there for killing his wife. Although they never met, Wilde observed him from afar and was profoundly affected by his story, his case inspiring the words 'yet each man kills the thing he loves'. Wilde had been released from Reading Gaol on 18 May 1897 and travelled immediately to France, spending the summer in Berneval-sur-Mer under the pseudonym Sebastian Melmoth. From then on he led a peripatetic lifestyle based in Paris, travelling around the watering holes of Europe with various friends and acquaintances. It can be seen from a letter to Maurice Gilbert that Wilde and Bosie were in Nogent certainly from 18 June and remained there until early July 1898, which gives a likely time-frame for our letter. Our letter is not published in Merlin Holland and Rupert Hart, eds, The Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde, 2000, but is listed on the 'Uncollected Letters of Oscar Wilde' website, which gives it an earlier date. This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: * * VAT on imported items at a preferential rate of 5% on Hammer Price and the prevailing rate on Buyer's Premium. For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com For further information about this lot please visit the lot listing