MEYERSTEIN, E.H.W. (1889-1952). Scholar and poet.
Autograph Letter, initialled, to R. N. Green-Armytage.
Meyerstein writes his opinion on several of Oscar Wilde's works.
Chiefly devoted to quite detailed consideration of the works of Oscar Wilde: “The poetry seems to me very bad. Horribly fluent, a sort of free fantasia on the last two stanzas of ‘The Scholar Gipsy’, full of impudent undergraduate borrowings, and with a vulgar taste in would-be impressive words … But his insight into women, especially in their social relations and the way their minds work, is considerable, and, for a wit, he has a good deal more humour than we would readily concede him a priori”. Mentioning many of Wilde’s works including The Ballad of Reading Gaol, Salome, A Woman of No Importance, The Importance of Being Ernest, and The Picture of Dorian Gray.
The letter is accompanied by “Magdalen Walk; or, The Fritillary” (Typescript, 3 pages 4to.), one of Meyerstein’s “eclogues”, in this case a humorous conversation in verse between Wilde and Walter Pater. Inscribed at the end for Green-Armytage some three weeks after the letter.
Meyerstein was an English writer, scholar, and fellow of Magdalen College. He wrote poetry and short stories, and a Life of Thomas Chatterton.
