Wilde (Oscar).- Contract letter signed by Wilde, selling the rights of publication of The Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest to Leonard Smithers for £30, folds, tape-repairs, hole-punched at head, surface soiling, 27th April, 1899; and 4 others, a typed copy of the same and autograph documents covering sale and transfer of stock and rights from Smithers to Bickers & Son and John Lane, v.s. (5)*** Oscar Wilde selling the publishing rights to his most celebrated play before Smithers, facing bankruptcy, sells them one year later.The publisher Leonard Smithers and Oscar Wilde became friends and business associates sometime in the summer of 1897 when Wilde was living near Dieppe following his release from prison. The two men took to each other instantly and in August, Wilde approached Smithers to publish the poem The Ballad of Reading Gaol. The resulting publication was a modest success, running through several editions within a year. The success prompted Smithers to propose publishing Wilde's Importance of Being Earnest and An Ideal Husband, both of which had been staged to great success until the run was curtailed by Wilde's trial and the proposed publication of which by Mathews and Lane (see lot XXX) had been abandoned. The negotiations regarding publication were protracted, hampered in large part by the poor financial situation in which both men found themselves. Ultimately they would settled on splitting the profits from the venture, though Smithers would also send Wilde some £30 to assist in his finances. The close association of the plays with the disgraced Wilde however would prove fatal to their prospects with much of the press refusing to review or even acknowledge the publication, with resultant sales proving poor. In February 1899 Smithers wrote to Wilde offering to buy him out for £30, observing "judging by the sales up to now. I should say you would make £30.0.0 more by taking this offer than by taking half the profits." Wilde agreed to Smithers' proposal and signed the present item on 27th April, 1899.Whether Smithers bought out Wilde as a means of assisting his friend or whether he thought he would be able to ultimately profit from the venture is unclear, but in early 1900 the publisher was in dire straits, a situation attested to by the remaining documents in the lot. Smithers appears to have made a deal with Moore & Son of Vigo Street to sell the remaining stock of the plays (roughly 400 copies of Earnest and 600 copies of Husband), at which point it seems they also took on the publication rights. Both the stock and rights then appear to have transferred to Bickers & Son before the rights finally came to John Lane in April 1901.