Oscar Wilde photograph from family album to go to auction

Unpublished photo of a young Wilde is part of Guinness family album expected to fetch up to 8,000 at auction in October

Dressed in tweed plus-fours, with a slightly wistful smile on his face, a young Oscar Wilde leans against the steps of Ashford Castle in 1878 in a previously unpublished photograph found in a family album.

Wilde was part of a shooting party October 1878 at Ashford Castle in County Mayo, Ireland. He was 23 at the time, and had studied at Oxford University for four years, earning a first-class degree in the greats. According to Frank Harriss biography, in the Trinity term of 1878 Wilde won the Newdigate prize for English verse for his poem Ravenna Its recitation in the Sheldonian theatre that June was the literary event of the year in Oxford.

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