rough the
halfpenny post to newspaper editors and others:--

Mr. Oscar Wilde will contribute to the July number of _Lippincott's
Magazine_ a complete novel, entitled "The Picture of Dorian Gray,"
which, as the first venture in fiction of one of the most prominent
personalities and artistic influences of the day, will be
everywhere read with wide interest and curiosity. But the story is
in itself so strong and strange, and so picturesque and powerful in
style, that it must inevitably have created a sensation in the
literary world, even if published without Mr. Wilde's name on the
title page.

Viewed merely as a romance, it is from the opening paragraph down
to the tragic and ghastly climax, full of strong and sustained
interest; as a study in psychology it is phenomenal; judged even
purely as a piece of literary workmanship it is one of the most
brilliant and remarkable productions of the year.

Such, Sir, is the estimate of Mr. Wilde's publishers or paragraph
writer. Note the adjectival exuberance of the puffer--complete, strong,
strange, picturesque, powerful, tragic, ghastly, sustained, phenomenal,
brilliant and remarkable. For a man who does not want advertisement this
is not bad.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

June 27th. A LONDON EDITOR.

* * * * *

_The sphere of art and the sphere of ethics are absolutely distinct and
separate._

* * * * *

MR. OSCAR WILDE'S DEFENCE.

To the Editor of the _St. James's Gazette_.[10]

Sir,--In your issue of this evening you publish a letter from "A London
Editor" which clearly insinuates in the last paragraph that I have in
some way sanctioned the circulation of an expression of opinion, on the
part of the proprietors of _Lippincott's Magazine_, of the literary and
artistic value of my story of the "Picture of Dorian Gray."

Allow me, Sir, to state that there are no grounds for this insinuation.
I was not aware that any such document was being circulated; and I have
written to the agents, Messrs. Ward and Lock--who cannot, I feel sure,
be primarily responsible for its appearance--to ask them to withdraw it
at once. No publisher should ever express an opinion of the value of
what he publishes. That is a matter entirely for the literary critic to
decide.

I must admit, as one to whom contemporary literatur