The Portrait of Mr. W. H.
by Oscar Wilde

Publication date 2021-08-20
Usage Public Domain Mark 1.0Creative Commons Licensepublicdomain
Topics librivox, audiobooks, Shakespeare, willie hughes
LibriVox recording of The Portrait of Mr. W. H. by Oscar Wilde.
Read in English by Rob Marland
Wilde's short story about an attempt to uncover the identity of Mr. W. H., the dedicatee of Shakespeare's sonnets, was first published in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine in 1889. He intended to publish an expanded version of the story as a separate book, a plan that was not realized until after his death. This audiobook is based on the expanded version. - Summary by Rob Marland.
chapter 1 of the portrait of mr wh by oscar wilde this is a librivox recording all librivox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit librivox.org read by rob marland the portrait of mr wh as written by oscar wilde sometime after the publication of his essay of the same title and now first printed from the original enlarged manuscript which for 26 years has been lost to the world chapter one i had been dining with erskine in his pretty little house in bird cage walk and we were sitting in the library over our coffee and cigarettes when the question of literary forgeries happened to turn up in conversation i cannot at present remember how it was that we struck upon this somewhat curious topic as it was at that time but i know we had a long discussion about mcpherson ireland and chatterton and that with regard to the last i insisted that his so-called forgeries were merely the result of an artistic desire for perfect representation that we had no right to quarrel with an artist for the conditions under which he chooses to present his work and that all art being to a certain degree a mode of acting an attempt to realize one's own personality on some imaginative plane out of reach of the troubling accidents and limitations of real life to censure an artist for a forgery was to confuse and ethical with an aesthetical problem erskine who was a good deal older than i was and had been listening to me with the amused deference of a man of forty suddenly put his hand upon my shoulder and said to me what would you say about a young man who had a strange theory about a certain work of art believed in his theory and committed a forgery in order to prove it oh that is quite a different matter i answered erskine remained silent for a few moments looking at the thin grey threads of smoke that were rising from his cigarette yes he said after a pause quite different there was something in the tone of his voice a slight touch of bitterness perhaps that excited my curiosity did you ever know anybody who did that i cried yes he answered throwing his cigarette into the fire a great friend of mine cyril graham he was very fascinating and very foolish and very heartless however he left me the only legacy i ever received in my life what was that i exclaimed laughing erskine rose from his seat as going over to a tall inlaid cabinet that stood between the two windows unlocked it and came back to where i was sitting carrying a small panel picture set in an old and somewhat tarnished elizabethan frame it was a full length portrait of a young man in late 16th century costume standing by a table with his right hand resting on an open book he seemed about 17 years of age and was of quite extraordinary personal beauty though evidently somewhat effeminate indeed had it not been for the dress and the closely cropped hair one would have said that the face with its dreamy wistful eyes and its delicate scarlet lips was the face of a girl in manner and especially in the treatment of the hands the figure reminded one of francois klue's later work the black velvet doblet with its fantastically gilded points and the peacock blue background against which it showed up so pleasantly and from which it gained such luminous...