MISCELLANIES BY OSCAR WILDE


DEDICATION: TO WALTER LEDGER


Since these volumes are sure of a place in your marvellous library I
trust that with your unrivalled knowledge of the various editions of
Wilde you may not detect any grievous error whether of taste or type, of
omission or commission. But should you do so you must blame the editor,
and not those who so patiently assisted him, the proof readers, the
printers, or the publishers. Some day, however, I look forward to your
bibliography of the author, in which you will be at liberty to criticise
my capacity for anything except regard and friendship for
yourself.--Sincerely yours,

ROBERT ROSS

May 25, 1908.




INTRODUCTION


The concluding volume of any collected edition is unavoidably fragmentary
and desultory. And if this particular volume is no exception to a
general tendency, it presents points of view in the author's literary
career which may have escaped his greatest admirers and detractors. The