Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), Sonnet on the sale by auction of Keats’ love letters: autograph manuscript signed. London, 1 March 1885. EL3 W672 MS 1

This is a manuscript sonnet by Wilde, composed the day before an auction at Sotheby’s of letters written by Keats to his love interest Fanny Brawne. Wilde believed such personal letters to be sacred and found their public sale offensive. Among the collections of The Rosenbach are both this sonnet by Wilde and one of the Keats letters to Brawne.

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