Franny Moyle by Constance: The Tragic, Scandalous Life of Mrs. Oscar Wilde

the ‘practical Romance’ she had discussed with Otho, she began to write children’s stories.
    In 1887 Oscar had his first short stories published. ‘Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime’, inspired by the amateur fortune-teller Edward Heron Allen, is the story of a young man who becomes the subject of a self-fulfilling destiny after a chiromantist (or palm-reader) called Mr Podger foresees a murder in the lines on his hand. Oscar’s ‘The Canterville Ghost’ also reflects the fascination for other-worldly phenomena that prevailed in society at the time, and which held a particular fascination for Constance.
    While Oscar was busy negotiating the publication of these stories, Constance was approached to write a children’s story for The Bairn’s Annual , a publication produced by the Leadenhall Press and edited by the writer Alice Corkran. Corkran’s Irish family were established friends of Speranza’s and by default Oscar’s. Alice’s sister the society artist Henriette had painted Constance’s portrait two years earlier. 9
    For the third edition of The Bairn’s Annual , released in November 1887 ready for the Christmas market, Constance wrote a story called ‘Was It a Dream?’ Her contribution provided instant publicity for the annual. ‘The Bairn’s Annual … contains tales and poetry for childrenin every way worthy of the Leadenhall Press,’ noted Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper in its ‘Books of the Day’ column, adding: ‘among the contributors being Mrs Oscar Wilde’. 10
    The Leadenhall Press had built a reputation for publishing high-quality illustrated books and children’s books, many of which were facsimiles of eighteenth-century editions. The firm was run by Andrew Tuer, who had a particular sympathy with the Aesthetic and liberal-minded set in which Constance moved. In addition to his children’s literature, he published work by the feminist writer and poet Emily J. Pfeiffer, whom Oscar invited to contribute to The Lady’s World . Pfeiffer’s book was illustrated by none other than Edward Burne-Jones and Jimmy Whistler. Speranza’s friend Anna Kingsford had written a Theosophical text, The Perfect Way , which was also published by Tuer. A passionate collector, Tuer had his own impressive stash of antiquarian books, which often provided the source of his company’s facsimile reproductions. His own collection of Japanese stencils also allowed him, in collaboration with Liberty & Co., to produce a facsimile stencil book, enabling those Aesthetes who could not afford the services of a Godwin or Whistler a DIY alternative.
    â€˜Was It a Dream?’ stands out among the other stories that Corkran assembled in The Bairn’s Annual of 1887. Tonally it is quite different. The book generally features jungle animals, witches, moral tales of nursery tiffs and adventures featuring brave children. Constance’s story, by contrast, takes art and dreaming as its subject matter. These preoccupations place it firmly as an ‘Aesthetic piece’. Dream-like, somnambulant paintings were the mainstay of the movement’s painters, such as Edward Burne-Jones. The adoration of ‘Art for Art’s sake’ was articulated by the philosophers of the movement such as Walter Pater and, of course, Oscar himself.
    Another aspect of the story that secures its claim to being part of the Aesthetic tradition is its fascination with Japan. ‘Was It a Dream?’ is about a Japanese fan, an object that could well have come from A. B. Ya’s store at the ‘Healtheries’, or which could have travelled back with Mortimer Menpes from his own travels in that country.
    In Constance’s story the fan, decorated with a painted stork ‘flyingdaintily’ across it, is hanging in an imaginary nursery. One night the stork is magically brought to life by an angel who has come to bestow