The cheaper edition was issued at $1.00 but comparatively few sold as I was interested in greater matters and transferred the stock to J.B. Lippincott & Co., where the lot was consumed in their fire.
I think the whole credit for the green leaves, and the general oddity of the make-up of the book belongs to our office altho' Wilde may have been consulted. Of course you recognize the reproduction of his seal."
All the circumstances connected with the publication of _Rose Leaf and Apple Leaf_ are confessedly not entirely clear to us. It is undoubtedly true, as stated in the _N.Y Tribune_, (November 25, 1882,) that "Mr. Rennell Rodd, the young English poet whose verses were brought out here in apple-green and rose-red under the enthusiastic auspices of Mr. Oscar Wilde, has altered in his faith. He now disclaims any connection with the æsthetic school, and lets it be known that he had nothing to do with the amazing dress in which his verses appeared. He intends to publish a new volume." This "newsy" note was based on a briefer one made just two weeks earlier in _The Academy_, (London, November 11, 1882,) viz.: "We understand that Mr. Rennell Rodd has a new volume of poems in the press. He is anxious to disclaim any connection with the "Æsthetic" school, with which he has been identified."
It may here be said that Mr. Rodd's first impressions were somewhat different from what the above implies. In a letter dated October 6, 1882, he wrote the American publisher:
"I had not till lately seen the little edition,--which is charming. I have seen no _édition de luxe_ in England to compare with it.... I have to thank you for the great care and delicacy with which this little book has been published."
What undoubtedly precipitated the trouble was not the _format_, "amazing" though it may have seemed to the nameless scribe of the _Tribune_, but the proposal by the Stoddart firm to bring out an English edition. This could not be done, as Mr. Rodd pointed out, because the poems had already been published in London, and as he held the copyright, they could not be reissued save with his consent. Furthermore: "Since I have read the introduction I am not over pleased at the way in which I find myself identified with much that I have no sympathy with." Last of all, probably first of all, "there is one thing in it that has annoyed me excessively, and had I had a proof I should not have allowed it to stand. The dedication is too effusive. I have written to Mr. Wilde on this score, but if he does not write to you, I must ask you as a personal favour to see to it. I want to have it removed from all copies that go out for the future."
