She immediately becomes a Christian, and is murdered by
robbers. Honorius the hermit goes back to Alexandria to pursue a
life of pleasure. Two other similar plays Wilde invented in prison,
AHAB AND ISABEL and PHARAOH; he would never write them down, though
often importuned to do so. Pharaoh was intensely dramatic and
perhaps more original than any of the group. None of these works
must be confused with the manuscripts stolen from 16 Tite Street in
1895--namely, the enlarged version of Mr. W. H., the second draft of
A Florentine Tragedy, and The Duchess of Padua (which, existing in a
prompt copy, was of less importance than the others); nor with The
Cardinal of Arragon, the manuscript of which I never saw. I
scarcely think it ever existed, though Wilde used to recite proposed
passages for it.
Some years after Wilde's death I was looking over the papers and
letters rescued from Tite Street when I came across loose sheets of
manuscript and typewriting, which I imagined were fragments of The
Duchess of Padua; on putting them together in a coherent form I
recognised that they belonged to the lost Florentine Tragedy. I
assumed that the opening scene, though once extant, had disappeared.
One day, however, Mr. Willard wrote that he possessed a typewritten
fragment of a play which Wilde had submitted to him, and this he
kindly forwarded for my inspection.
Pages:
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26