He now plans to transcribe and edit what he has described as the “first ever modern edition” of Des Grieux, “so as to disseminate the work as widely as possible for general readers and scholars alike”. O’Hearn ended up raising more than $3,000 (£2,000) from a range of backers, with the University of British Columbia’s library contributing the remaining money to purchase both volumes, Des Grieux for $23,000, and Teleny for $16,000. Justin O’Hearn, a PhD candidate in Victorian literature at the University of British Columbia, hopes to change that, after his Kickstarter campaign helped raise the money to acquire both titles when they went up for auction at Christie’s. Although Teleny has been widely republished – sometimes under Wilde’s name – Des Grieux is almost wholly unknown to scholars. Only a handful of copies of Teleny and its prequel remain, with authorship still uncertain. It was subsequently collected and returned by a series of young men, and when Hirsch unwrapped it, he found the manuscript of Teleny, written by several different authors. Hirsch claimed in 1934 that in 1890 Wilde had arrived at his shop with a manuscript, carefully wrapped, which he asked the bookseller to take care of.
