Elizabeth Adams, College Librarian, writes: These volumes are a valuable addition to the Robert Ross Memorial Collection and the College is most grateful to FNL for their support with the purchase.
Walter Edwin Ledger’s collection of Oscar Wilde’s works began as early as 1884 when he attended a concert at the Royal Albert Hall and purchased the official programme, Shakespearean Show-Book, which included Wilde’s poem, ‘Under the balcony’. From the late 1890s, Ledger began collecting in earnest, amassing an almost complete collection by the time of his death in 1931. Ledger’s will requested that his books by or about Oscar Wilde should be kept together and known as the ‘Robert Ross Memorial Collection’ in honour of his friend, Robbie Ross. This stipulation has preserved much of Ledger’s collection but also resulted in the dispersal of some of his books.
As well as his interest in Oscar Wilde and fin-de-siècle literature more widely, Walter Ledger was an accomplished pianist (with a particular fondness for Chopin), a knowledgeable botanist and a connoisseur of fine art. He bequeathed over 250 prints to the British Museum and the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, and over 300 live plants and a collection of dried specimens to the Botanical Gardens at Kew. Despite these legacies and his status as one of the earliest and most successful collectors of Wilde’s work, relatively little is known about Walter Ledger’s life.
Within Ledger’s collection is an 1891 edition of Wilde’s Intentions printed in Leipzig. An inscription inside reveals that Ledger received the book as a gift from his older brother, Percy, in May 1896. Percy’s choice of gift only a little over a year after Wilde’s very public fall from grace reveals a touching support of his brother’s potentially controversial interest. The return of the three volumes of The Savoy, owned by both Ledger and his brother, not only adds colour to the life and collecting habits of this important collector, but also suggests new avenues for future research into the Robert Ross Memorial Collection.
