A Peep Into the Past

Synopsis

This hitherto unpublished essay was written by Max Beerbohm for the first number of The Yellow Book, but it was held over to make way for his famous Defence of Cosmetics, which duly appeared in April, 1894. Whether this change was made because of the impending Wilde scandal it is, of course impossible to say with certainty, but the probabilities favour this explanation. The Wilde case did not come to the ears of the general public until the spring of 1895, just one year after the founding of The Yellow Book, but literary London was aware of what was happening long before that date, and already in 1894 Wilde’s friends were very anxious about the recklessness of his behaviour. It is significant that Oscar Wilde, the archetype of the Decadent Nineties, did not contribute either to The Yellow Book or The Savoy, which were the literary organs of that whole movement. It is difficult not to see some connection between the remarkable absence of Wilde’s name from these periodicals and the fact that this brilliant essay on him was never published.

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