An Unpublished Letter by Oscar Wilde Found in Brazil

Abstract

When Oscar Wilde accepted Wemyss Reid’s offer to serve as editor-in-chief of The Woman’s World in 1887, one of his first initiatives was to write a series of letters to eminent women of the period inviting them to contribute essays reflecting on modern society. Among the women he approached was Dame Millicent Fawcett, a prominent advocate for women’s rights who would later become one of the most influential figures in the British suffrage movement. During a recent visit to the Biblioteca Nacional in Rio de Janeiro, I was able to confirm in its Manuscripts Section the existence of an unpublished letter that Wilde wrote to Dame Fawcett as part of this project. This article, originally published in The Wildean 67 (2025), examines the form and content of this message and provides a brief perspective on Dame Fawcett’s activities in the social and cultural landscapes of late nineteenth-century Britain.