The contents of this volume require some explanation of an
historical nature. It is scarcely realised by the present
generation that Wilde's works on their first appearance, with the
exception of De Profundis, were met with almost general condemnation
and ridicule. The plays on their first production were grudgingly
praised because their obvious success could not be ignored; but on
their subsequent publication in book form they were violently
assailed. That nearly all of them have held the stage is still a
source of irritation among certain journalists. Salome however
enjoys a singular career. As every one knows, it was prohibited by
the Censor when in rehearsal by Madame Bernhardt at the Palace
Theatre in 1892. On its publication in 1893 it was greeted with
greater abuse than any other of Wilde's works, and was consigned to
the usual irrevocable oblivion. The accuracy of the French was
freely canvassed, and of course it is obvious that the French is not
that of a Frenchman. The play was passed for press, however, by no
less a writer than Marcel Schwob whose letter to the Paris
publisher, returning the proofs and mentioning two or three slight
alterations, is still in my possession. Marcel Schwob told me some
years afterwards that he thought it would have spoiled the
spontaneity and character of Wilde's style if he had tried to
harmonise it with the diction demanded by the French Academy. It
was never composed with any idea of presentation. Madame Bernhardt
happened to say she wished Wilde would write a play for her; he
replied in jest that he had done so. She insisted on seeing the
manuscript, and decided on its immediate production, ignorant or
forgetful of the English law which prohibits the introduction of
Scriptural characters on the stage. With his keen sense of the
theatre Wilde would never have contrived the long speech of Salome
at the end in a drama intended for the stage, even in the days of