Oscar Wilde letters come to light in Oxford spat: Bodleian Library forced to return rare collection to its original London home over claims it was restricting access for researchers
Controversial author Oscar Wilde has sparked a row from beyond the grave at his alma mater, Oxford University, where the famous Bodleian Library has been forced to return a rare collection of unpublished letters and first-edition works to its original home.
The Robert Ross Memorial Collection, which was named after Wilde’s first male lover, contains more than 1,000 first-edition books, including The Happy Prince — which was made into a film starring Rupert Everett — as well as correspondence and original manuscripts.
I can reveal it has now been returned to University College Library after it was handed to the Bodleian some 80 years ago owing to lack of space.
Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish poet, writer and prominent aesthete in the 19th century
‘It’s an incredible collection of all the first editions of his works in all languages,’ Wilde’s grandson, Merlin Holland, tells me.
‘University College Library realised that it was just sitting at the Bodleian not being properly promoted or catalogued and demanded it back — much to the Bodleian’s fury.’
Canadian art critic Ross helped rehabilitate Wilde — who died poverty-stricken in 1900 in Paris — and boost his reputation after his incarceration in Reading Jail for gross indecency.
The collection was originally donated to University College Library in 1930, but has now been returned after criticisms the archive was not easily accessible at the Bodleian.
University College librarian Elizabeth Adams says: ‘We decided that we wanted it back and were concerned the Bodleian would just warehouse the material during its refurbishment.
Oxford’s Bodleian Library has been forced to return a rare collection of Wilde’s unpublished letters and first-edition works to its original home
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‘It’s better it is kept here. Researchers will have greater access. And now it is here, it will stay here.’
Bodleian librarian Richard Ovenden retorts: ‘During the Bodleian’s refurbishment, we continued to provide ready access to all our collections . . . The cataloguing and conservation of lent collections falls to their owner, rather than the borrowing institution.’
Kate Moss is fast becoming a model of clean living. The 45-year-old blonde, who gave up alcohol last year and now claims she loves salad and green juice, has embarked on a detox holiday this week with her close friend, Sadie Frost.
Kate and actress Sadie, 53, are staying at the five-star Ananda In The Himalayas, which specialises in yoga, meditation and Ayurveda — a type of alternative medicine from India. ‘I’ve learned to take care of myself a bit more,’ Kate said ahead of her birthday last month.
‘I do yoga every day. I don’t go out nearly as much. And I take care of my skin, which, somehow, has held up.’
The Duchess of Sussex had more than one reason to celebrate at her baby shower in New York yesterday.
Her close friend, Misha Nonoo, who is said to have played matchmaker to her and Prince Harry, has become engaged to multi-millionaire oil heir Michael ‘Mikey’ Hess.
The fashion designer, 34, flashed her diamond ring at Meghan’s bash just days after Mikey, 32, popped the question. He had whisked her away to Cabo San Lucas in Mexico for Valentine’s Day, where he got down on one knee on a private boat.
Friends say Misha, who was previously married to Old Etonian Alexander Gilkes, the co-founder of online auction house Paddle 8, is ‘over the moon’.
Baroness Falkender, who died this month aged 86, is remembered for her unusually intense relationship with her boss, Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson.
As his private and political secretary, it was alleged that she dictated Cabinet reshuffles, drew up the ‘Lavender List’, which doled out honours to her friends, and shared his bed — six times in 1956, apparently declaring that the experience ‘wasn’t satisfactory’.
But her childhood ambition was entirely different. ‘I wanted to work in a shoe shop,’ she acknowledged to author Dominic Shelmerdine. ‘I loved the smell of new leather.’
Wilson ennobled her in 1974 — much, it was said, to the Queen’s surprise.
Falkender denied the allegations, calling them ‘complete nonsense’.
At 5ft 8in, actress and model Donna Air is used to being one of the tallest women in the room.
But, at a London party this week, she was dwarfed by competition — from her own daughter.
The 39-year-old, who sported a £695 Vilshenko green velvet-panelled wool twill jacket, looked unusually diminutive next to Freya, 15, whose father is the wildlife conservationist Damian Aspinall.
‘When it looks like you’ve been shrunk in the wash, you know it must be London Fashion Week,’ joked Donna, referring to Freya and her leggy companions — models Jade Parfitt and Jodie Kidd — as ‘beautiful giraffes’.
Donna, who is dating property manager Ben Carrington after breaking up with the Duchess of Cambridge’s brother James Middleton in 2017, tells me that, although Freya has been scouted by a top model agency, her focus will remain on school.
They say never work with animals or children. Grantchester star Tom Brittney, who replaced James Norton as the dashing vicar in the hit ITV drama, might agree after filming with the show’s Labrador, Dickens.
‘Dickens is the biggest diva on set,’ says Brittney. ‘He has his entourage and he’s got a bigger trailer than me. I want a bigger trailer than Dickens next series.’
The 28-year-old adds: ‘If you see any scenes where Dickens is looking lovingly at me, there’s a sausage behind my head on a stick. That was the only way I could get him to look at me!’
John Lennon’s widow Yoko Ono was not responsible for the break-up of The Beatles. So says Lennon’s younger half-sister, writer Julia Baird, who insists that it was the impossibility of playing live that led to the demise of the Fab Four. ‘A lot of people who saw The Beatles on tour between 1964 and 1966, say: “Could you hear anything?” No, they didn’t hear one word,’ she claims.
‘There was so much screaming [from their fans] that The Beatles didn’t even bother to sing, they just opened their mouths, played their instruments and nobody noticed. ‘At that stage, John said: “This is it, I’m not doing this again.” ’
Sixties model Twiggy, 69, insists she remains unchanged since becoming a Dame in the New Year. ‘Oh, life is the same as it was before,’ she tells me.
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