Des Grieux : The Prelude to “Teleny”
It’s been exciting times here at Rare Books and Collections! With the help of PhD candidate Justin O’Hearn, RBSC has scored a coup by acquiring two exceptional examples of early gay literature, Teleny, or, The Reverse of the Medal and Des Grieux: The Prelude to “Teleny,” that share a connection with famed Victorian author Oscar Wilde. We’ve been very lucky that a number of media outlets have picked up the story of this amazing acquisition. Here’s a little media roundup for your reading, watching, and listening pleasure:
- MetroNews Vancouver, “Student’s crowd funding campaign helps UBC secure two historical novels,” (Jan. 13)
- CBC News, “UBC acquires rare, gay books with unproven links to Oscar Wilde,” (Jan. 13)
- CBC Radio One, On the Coast with Stephen Quinn, (Jan. 13) begins at 7:41
- Publishers Weekly, “Canadian University Acquires Novels With Oscar Wilde Link,” (Jan. 14)
- Georgia Straight, “UBC Library acquires two rare historic gay novels linked to Oscar Wilde,” (Jan. 14)
- American Research Libraries news, “U British Columbia Library Acquires Rare Wilde Books with Crowdfunding Assistance,” (Jan. 14)
- Global News, BC, “UBC Library acquires two rare historic gay novels,” (Jan. 15)
- The Guardian, “Gay erotic novel linked to Oscar Wilde bought after Kickstarter campaign,” (Jan. 19)
Hello. Shall scans of these books be available online? Anyway, these books are in public domain, so it would be great if they were available for everyone.
Yes, we absolutely plan to make scans of these books available, but it might be a bit of a lengthy process. They are definitely in the digitization queue, though, and we’ll let you know via the blog when they have been scanned and posted to our Digital Collections site.