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Oscar Wilde’s words of wisdom fetch A[pounds sterling]12,000 at auction

0 Comments | Star (Sheffield) (Sheffield, England), The, March 25, 2010

That sum was double the A[pounds sterling]6,000 the letter had been expected to fetch at the auction at Bonhams.

In the 150-word letter – posted from France on March 15, 1898 – Wilde tells Sheffield-born Leonard Smithers: “There are only two forms of writers in England: the unread and the unreadable.”

Leonard Charles Smithers, son of Sheffield dentist John Smithers, was born on Infirmary Road in December 1861 so was in his late 30s when he received the letter.

Smithers was educated at Wesley College For The Law in Sheffield and started his working life as a solicitor with Sheffield law firm, Meredith, Roberts and Mills, before he made an unusual career move by becoming a publisher of saucy books.

With Sheffield printer and book dealer Harry Nichols, he set up the Sheffield-based Erotika Biblion Society.

The venture was so successful Smithers and Nichols switched the business to London, which is how he came to meet and eventually publish the works of Oscar Wilde.

Wilde wrote to Smithers after his release from Reading Jail where he had served two years for homosexuality offences.

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