The Clark has recently acquired this letter from Oscar Wilde to Arthur Fish, dated 8 August 1890, which mentions a photograph that he would like to give Fish before the latter’s wedding day.  The Clark has owned the photograph in question for some time.  A lovely large image, mounted on beveled boards, it is signed “To dear Arthur from his friend Oscar Wilde.”

Fish had been Wilde’s sub-editor on the journal The Woman’s World from about 1887 to 1889 and spoke of him quite highly.  Fish, for his part, may have liked Wilde as a social acquaintance, but found his work habits a bit lacking: At first he took the work seriously and arrived at 11 a.m. on the appointed days, but gradually he came later and left earlier, so that his visit “was little more than a call.”