
Luke Batterham
Senior Valuer
This auction has ended. View lot details
Sold for £150 inc. premium
Our Books & Manuscripts specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.
Find your local specialist
Senior Valuer
THE LECTURE OVERHEARD BY WILDE: this card almost certainly dates from 1890: on Monday 24 November 1890, Pater gave a lecture on Prosper Mérimée at the London Institution (one he had delivered earlier in the month at the Taylor Institution, Oxford). It was printed in the Fortnightly Review, December 1890, and collected in Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays (1895).
Oscar Wilde, who was living in London at the time, is recorded as having attended the lecture. Afterwards, when his admirers gathered round to congratulate him, Pater wondered if they could hear what he said. This prompted Wilde to quip 'We overheard you', and Pater to repost 'Ah, you have a phrase for everything' (see Robert Ross, Masques and Phases, 1909, p. 131). This letter is not printed in The Letters of Walter Pater, edited by Lawrence Evans (1970).