[TYPESCRIPT.] – Oscar WILDE. Poems In Prose. [Original typescript. N.p.: n.d. circa 1900.] Title, 28 leaves typed text, recto only, comprising the prose poems ‘The Artist’, ‘The Doer of Good’, ‘The Master’, ‘The House of Judegment’ and ‘The Teacher of Wisdom’, integral book-mark. (Light to moderate spotting to preliminaries and last leaves.) Contemporary green full calf bound by Bumpus of Oxford Street, lettering to spine and upper cover (some sunning to spine, minor scuffing and staining to covers). Note: two of these prose poems were originally published in ‘The Spirit Lamp’- Lord Alfred Douglas’ university magazine. Wilde made some minor changes and then published the full five prose poems in the July 1894 issue of ‘The Fortnightly Review’. It was then privately printed, after Wilde’s death, in Paris in 1905 by Charles Carrington. This text contains the changes made for the ‘The Fortnightly Review’ but the punctuation is consistently different to that published in 1905, so this text is almost certainly based on the ‘Fortnightly Review’, and due to Wilde’s name not being present on the binding, almost certainly made after Wilde’s arrest in 1895. We can reasonably suggest it came from within Wilde’s circle. The typing font used is the same Remington font as used by Mrs. Marshall’s Typing Agency, the agency that Wilde used for the typing of his manuscripts. Also, the very idiosyncratic type-decoration used on the title page and headlines is the same as used by Mrs. Marshall’s agency. The possibility of this being a coincidence is unlikely. In ‘The London Phonographer. A Journal Devoted to Typewriting and Shorthand’ in 1893 [vol. 2. No. 22] we can see a list of 22 typewriting offices in London alone (including Mrs. Marshall’s) so it seems likely, along with the choice of green calf (green carnation), that Wilde’s circle were involved in the commission of this typescript, most likely as a gift. It is also recorded that Wilde used and recommended Bumpus for the binding of his work. In a letter of the 27th October 1894, Wilde wrote to Ada Leverson (‘The Sphinx’) thanking her for the Bumpus-bound gift of his work ‘Intentions’. That, too, had been bound in green: ‘Dear Sphinx, the copy of Intentions is quite beautiful. It is more green than the original even, and I read it as a new work with wonder and joy’. [Complete Letters, London, 2000, p. 616]. Provenance: by repute, from the estate of the descendants of Sir Basil Thomson, colonial administrator and Head of Metropolitan Police, C.I.D.