first regular issue. gift inscription to wilde's friend and benefactress minnie adela "tiny" schuster on front free endpaper. The inscription reads in full: "To Tiny / from her sincere / friend / Oscar Wilde / Sept. 89."
an important association copy. "Tiny" Schuster (her nickname playfully bestowed upon her by Wilde himself) was the daughter of a wealthy German banker, and, as Wilde later described her in De Profundis, "A woman, whose sympathy and noble kindness to me both before and since the tragedy of my imprisonment have been beyond power of description..."
"According to Frank Harris, Wilde told him that, at the time of his second trial, 'a very noble and cultured woman, a friend of both of us, Miss S-, a Jewess by race tho' not by religion, had written to him asking if she could help him financially, as she had been distressed by hearing of his bankruptcy, and feared that he might be in need.' When Wilde outlined what his expenses might be, Schuster sent him a check for £1,000, 'assuring him that it cost her little even in self-sacrifice and declaring that it was only inadequate recognition of the pleasure she had through his delightful talks'"(Schmidgall, The Stranger Wilde: Interpreting Oscar, 1994). See also J. Robert Maguire, Ceremonies of Bravery: Oscar Wilde, Carlos Blacker, and the Dreyfus Affair, 2013, pp. 66-68. Mason 313.