New-York Tribune - Thursday, April 11, 1895
This report was originally published in English. Machine translations may be available in other languages.
NO ACTION AS TO OSCAR WILDE'S BOOKS.
MANAGERS OF THE NEW-YORK PUBLIC LIBRA-
RIES HAVE NOT WITHDRAWN THEM
FROM
CIRCULATION - AN INCREASED SALE
AT STORES AND STANDS.
The disclosures regarding the life of Oscar Wilde have created some discussion among the managers of the proprietory and free circulating libraries of this city as to the propriety of keeping the books of which Wilde is the author upon their shelves. The news telegraphed from Europe that the British Museum has withdrawn from public use in the library the books in its collection of which Oscar Wilde is the author, and the fact that several important libraries in Newark and other cities have taken the same action, was freely discussed in the general libraries of the city yesterday. The librarians of New-York do not seem to be affected by the actions of their colleagues elsewhere. It seems probable that few, if any, of the libraries in this city will take any action whatever regarding the works of Wilde.
A Tribune reporter called yesterday afternoon at the principal circulating libraries to find out the general opinion in regard to Wilde’s works. At the Mercantile Library in Astor Place, William T. Peoples, the librarian, said: "We have no intention of withdrawing the works of Oscar Wilde from circulation. Such action may do for provincial towns, but hardly, I think, for New-York City. Most of those who patronized the Mercantile Library are of mature age, fully capable of judging for themselves, and we cannot constitute ourselves as censors of what people should read, so long as the books are not immoral or vicious. Immoral and vicious books, of course, we exclude from our shelves. But if we were to take upon ourselves the task of ridding our shelves of all the books which were written by men, or women, whose reputations were more or less unsavory, there would be a wholesale thinning out. No! We judge the books themselves; and not the authors. The works of Oscar Wilde are not in themselves immoral or vicious, and they can only be made so by reading between the lines. I have noticed no particular increase in the call for Wilde’s works since his exposure in London; but, of course, curiosity will lead some people to get those books who would not otherwise have thought of them."
Jacob Schwartz, the librarian of the circulating library of the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen of the City of New-York, No. 18 East Sixteenth-st., said that the library had only a few volumes of Wilde’s works on the shelves. He added that no action would be taken in less some of the patrons found objections to the author’s books, and in that case one of the Purchasing Committee would read them and pass upon them.
The stand taken by these large libraries will probably be followed by a majority of the smaller libraries of this city.
The demand for Oscar Wilde's books among the publishers and booksellers is enormous. Most of the bookstands are loaded down with his works. One bookstand man told the reporter that he had sold nearly 100 copies of "Dorian Gray" since the trial in London, and while that was the biggest seller, others had also had a large sale.