Beschreibung:

Teleny or The Reverse of the Medal A Physiological Romance of To-day . Cosmopoli: [but London: Leonard Smithers,] 1893.
Teleny or The Reverse of the Medal A Physiological Romance of To-day . Cosmopoli: [but London: Leonard Smithers,] 1893. 2 volumes, octavo (190 x 130 mm). With half-titles and deckle edges. Contemporary vellum-backed boards with the original salmon pink printed wrappers bound in, spine lettered in red, top edges gilt the others uncut (vellum with some spotting, wrappers lightly soiled). Provenance : Swann Galleries (sold, lot 86, 8 February 1979) -- J.B. Rund (bookplate, pencilled note on front endpaper, letter laid in recording the purchase from Swann). RARE FIRST EDITION OF ONE OF THE EARLIEST EXPLICITLY HOMOEROTIC NOVELS IN ENGLISH, sometimes attributed to Oscar Wilde. Number 160 of 200 copies only. Aleister Crowley, who was convinced of Wilde's role, underlined the importance of Teleny , irrespective of who wrote it: 'with the exception of Verlaine in Hombres , and Wilde in Teleny ... nobody in modern times has dared to voice openly... the passion between man and man' (quoted in Mendes). The authorship, however, remains uncertain, and is more likely to have been a collaborative effort: 'Wilde had some part in revising the original MS, which appears to have been passed (c.1889-90) from hand to hand among a homosexual circle... of acolytes surrounding Wilde before he met Lord Alfred Douglas' (Mendes). A later edition of Teleny was censored, and it was not until 1986 that another edition returned the text to this original. The small edition size and subject matter have ensure that very few copies have survived: AE and ABPC record only one other copy at auction in more than 40 years. Mendes 87-A.