The Rivendale Press has for some time been publishing a series of simply produced booklets (in a marble paper cover) under the title Questing Collector Series. The title says it all: the booklets contain questions, suggestions and finds from collectors of 1890s figures and publications. Not all conjectures seem justified to me, but the finds are always interesting. [For the list of titles, go to the website of the Rivendale Press].
Part 3 of the series, written by Steven Halliwell and Michael Seeney, is called Leonard Smithers, Charles Shannon and An Ideal Husband (2020). It deals with several issues: reuse of a (perhaps earlier) binding for An Ideal Husband, variant spine titles and binding variants for The Importance of Being Earnest.
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| Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband (1899): spine design 1 [photo: Steven Halliwell] |
For some inexplicable reason, one may find two different bindings for An Ideal Husband, and the variations do not concern the decorations designed by Charles Shannon, but the lettering on the spine.
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| Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband (1899): spine design 2 [photo: Steven Halliwell] |
A serif typeface was used for most of them, but a non-serif typeface was selected for some copies.
The difference is most obvious in the distance between the publisher's name and the year, and and there is a variant in Co where the dash under the letter o is replaced by a dot after the letter.Wilde's bibliographer Stuart Mason (C.S. Millard) noted such a difference in typeface for The Importance of Being Earnest, published six months earlier, but not for this book. Since neither book was reviewed by the press and sales were disappointing, it is not implausible that not all copies of the editions were bound at the same time, especially if the lack of success was anticipated. And, perhaps, Mason misplaced his note? After the sales of The Importance were disappointing, it would be logical for him not to have all copies of An Ideal Husband bound at once.
That does seem the most reasonable explanation, but then it remains strange that so few copies with that variant binding turn up. Other possibilities cannot therefore be ruled out. It may be that a printing plate was made for the decorations on the front and back cover including the spine, but without lettering, or that proof bindings were used later for some copies.
[Thanks are due to Steven Halliwell for providing the scans].
