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Oscar Wilde: Art and Morality

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<h2>LETTER FROM "A LONDON EDITOR."</h2> In the same issue of June 28th appeared the following letter:— To the Editor of the St. James's Gazette. Sir,—If Mr. Oscar Wilde is the last man in England (according to his own account) who requires advertisement, his friends and publishers do not seem to be of the same opinion. Otherwise it is difficult to account for the following audacious puff-postive which has been sent through the halfpenny post to newspaper editors and others:— <blockquote>Mr. Oscar Wilde will contribute to the July number of Lippincott's Magazine a complete novel, entitled "The Picture of Dorian Gray," which, as the first venture in fiction of one of the most prominent personalities and artistic influences of the day, will be everywhere read with wide interest and curiosity. But the story is in itself so strong and strange, and so picturesque and powerful in style, that it must inevitably have created a sensation in the literary world, even if published without Mr. Wilde's name on the title page. Viewed merely as a romance, it is from the opening paragraph down to the tragic and ghastly climax, full of strong and sustained interest; as a study in psychology it is phenomenal; judged even purely as a piece of literary workmanship it is one of the most brilliant and remarkable productions of the year. </blockquote> Such, Sir, is the estimate of Mr. Wilde's publishers or paragraph writer. Note the adjectival exuberance of the puffer—complete, strong, strange, picturesque, powerful, tragic, ghastly, sustained, phenomenal, brilliant and remarkable. For a man who does not want advertisement this is not bad. I am, Sir, your obedient servant, June 27th. A LONDON EDITOR. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> The sphere of art and the sphere of ethics are absolutely distinct and separate. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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