[ORIGINAL ILLUSTRATED MANUSCRIPTS OF NONSENSE VERSE] 'THE FAMILY ENCYLOPAEDIA OF NONSENSE'. de HARRIS, Clement; [WAGNER, Siegfried]; [WILDE, Oscar]: - 1890-1896.: With: 'A Book of Nonsense: A series of prolongated cataleptical hysterics'. And: 'The Gilded Rope: A Society Drama in 3 Acts'.

[Original unpublished manuscripts]., 1890-1896.. Three original manuscripts in ink, the first two embellished with numerous bizarre and fantastical watercolour and gouache illustrations:

1. 'The Family Encylopaedia of Nonsense'. Small quarto (21.5 x 17.5cm). Contemporary half green cloth over patterned paper boards, manuscript title label to the upper board. Frankfurt bookseller's label to the front pastedown. Illustrated manuscript title page, followed by 28pp. of manuscript ink text, incorporating 16 colourful watercolour and gouache illustrations (including two tipped-in full-page images), plus a watercolour landscape. Additional page of manuscript notes to the rear regarding a journey through Egypt by Harris. The remainder blank. Dedication to the author's sister Muriel, dated August 14th 1890 to the verso of the title page. Later ink inscription from Muriel to her niece to the front free endpaper. The backstrip detached and with some cracking to the front hinge, although remaining secure. Rubbing to the boards and wear to the corners and board edges. The contents with the title page neatly tipped back in with contemporary postage stamp sheet margins and the odd spot of light foxing are otherwise in good order.

2. 'A Book of Nonsense'. Quarto (24 x 19.5cm). Contemporary half textured cloth over paper-covered boards, manuscript title label to the upper board. Illustrated manuscript title page, followed by 64pp. of manuscript text, almost entirely in ink, incorporating 31 colourful watercolour and gouache illustrations. Further 24pp. pages of notes and verses in ink and pencil to the rear, with scattered pencil sketches and doodles. The remainder blank, although incorporating several other pages of pencil jottings. Dedication to the author's sister Muriel G. E. Harris to the verso of the title page. Later ink inscription from Muriel to her niece to the front pastedown. The backstrip lacking and the boards becoming somewhat loose. Rubbing to the boards and wear to the corners and board edges. Tape repairs to the front and rear hinges. The contents with one page coming loose, scattered toning and marking, and the odd minor chip to page margins are otherwise in good order.

3. 'The Gilded Rope'. Quarto (23.5 x 19cm). Contemporary full padded black leather with gilt initials "C. H." to the upper board. Manuscript title page dated 1892, with dedication by the author to his sister Muriel. 145pp. of manuscript text in black and red ink. The binding extensively worn, the upper board detached and the backstrip lacking. The contents remain in very good order. An eye-catching pair of original manuscript books of nonsense verse incorporating forty-seven bold and bizarre watercolour and gouache illustrations by the English pianist, composer, beloved companion of Siegfried Wagner and close friend of Oscar Wilde, Clement Hugh Gilbert Harris (1871-1897).

Born in London into a wealthy ship-owning family, Harris was educated at Harrow and subsequently studied music in Frankfurt, where he was one of the chosen few piano pupils of the distinguished pianist and composer Clara Schumann. In 1889, at a soirée at the house of Edward Speyer, Harris met Siegfried Wagner (1869-1930), son of the famous composer Richard Wagner, who would later become a noted composer and conductor in his own right. These parties at the home of Speyer - a notable patron of the arts - were lively, bohemian affairs, and in the course of the colourful entertainment Wagner would sometimes dress up and perform as a prima ballerina. Harris and Wagner quickly became intimate friends and apparently more, with Harris reputedly being the first to arose Wagner's homoerotic impulses.

In early 1892, following a restless summer together in Bayreuth the previous year, the pair left for London, spending time with Oscar Wilde, for whom Harris was something of a protegé. Indeed, Harris would perform Richard Wagner transcriptions for Wilde, and the pair would attend the opera together and talk about "the most marvellous of all things; painting, music, love" (Carr, Jonathan, The Wagner Clan (2007), p.118). After London, Harris and Wagner undertook a six-month journey to the far East onboard one of Harris's father's ships, the 'Wakefield'. The only two passengers on board, their voyage became one of great personal and creative discovery. Indeed, when Wagner came to write his memoirs three decades later, he devoted over half the text to recollections of the trip. During their journey, both men devoted great energy to their respective musical compositions: Siegfried planned the structure of his symphonic poem 'Sehnsucht' ("Yearning"), while Harris sketched themes for his orchestral work 'Paradise Lost', after Milton. Both pieces were premiered in 1895 in London and Frankfurt respectively, Harris's being met with critical acclaim, performed before an audience including the Prince of Wales and the King of Belgium. The trip was of great significance for Wagner, his time under Harris's influence finally encouraging him, whilst they were in Hong Kong, to make the momentous decision to abandon his goal of becoming an architect and instead choose a composing and conducting career. As well as pursuing their creative endeavours during their travels, the pair also had a great deal of adventurous fun together, with Wagner's memoirs recalling how they bathed nude on a Malaysian beach, ate cat and dog meat in Canton, and were serenaded by a harpist whilst in bed in the Philippines, whilst all the while surrounding themselves with a growing number of exotic pets, including canaries, a monkey, and a Chinese dog (perhaps rescued after their previous experience).

On their return the pair parted company at Port Said. Wagner recorded their goodbye in his private travel journal, indicating the depth of their fellowship: "My dear Clement accompanied me on board where we said goodbye, superficially in as English a way as possible because lots of people were milling around us, but in our hearts with that affection and intimacy with which we had learned to love one another". Their relationship, however, would be tragically cut short. An enthusiastic admirer of Greek culture, Harris travelled to Greece at the outbreak of the Greco-Turkish War of 1897, organising his own battalion of mercenaries to fight on the Greek side, and was killed at Pente Pigadia on 23 April 1897 at the age of 25.

The relationship between Harris and Wagner was of great significance to them both, and Harris's untimely death was a cause of great sorrow for his dear friend. As Jonathan Carr writes, when, in 1922–23, Wagner composed the symphonic poem Glück ("Happiness"), "he evidently dedicated it in private to the dead friend whose picture never left his desk". Indeed, for all of Wagner's other emotional entanglements, male and female, "much suggests that in Clement Harris, Siegfried found and lost the love of his life" (Carr, p.121).

Despite his short life, Harris produced a notable and well-regarded musical output comprising numerous pieces for piano, including Il Pensieroso and L'Allegro after Milton, and romances for violin, piano, clarinet, and cello. Oscar Wilde was particularly struck by Harris's piano performances, referring "to the rare aura of the young pianist, confessing indeed that he was sometimes scared by the intensity of his playing" (Carr, p.118). Harris's death was commemorated by the poet Stefan George in the poem "Pente Pigadia" in his collection Der siebente Ring, and his diaries were published in German by the Stefan George scholar Claus Bock.

The present illustrated books of nonsense verse date to the period Harris was studying in Frankfurt under Schumann, as well as the time of his friendship with Wilde and travels with Wagner (1890-95). Apparently created to amuse Harris alongside his more serious work, they reflect the joyful nature of this period in his life, as he developed his musical talents, mixed in bohemian society, and explored the world alongside his dear companion Siegfried.

The books form a most uncommon example of original nineteenth-century illustrated nonsense verse created by someone with genuine literary and artistic talent. They comprise both rhymes and short stories, including "The Snippers of Snothering" ("tuffles & cream / truffles & cream / God save the Emperor / God save the Queen!"), "Miss Jubjub's at Home", "The Ploon's Resolve", "The Bandersnatch's Farewell to Sloane Square", and "How the Snorwitch Learnt to Speak Russian" (involving a trip to the moon in a hot air balloon: ""You're the man in the moon" cried the Snark "as I see;" / "I think I have met you at Norwich" / "Don't talk of that place, I can't bear it" said he / "I burnt my mouth there with hot porridge." / "As you live in the moon" then continued the Snark / "may I ask where you get your hair curled?" / "I go once a week for a jolly good lark / by the Saturday's train - to the world"").

The manuscript play, 'The Gilded Rope', was written in 1892, the year that Harris and Wagner travelled to London together, spent time with Oscar Wilde, and embarked on their journey to Asia. A satirical "society drama", it too also veers into the nonsense genre, with characters including Semolina and Snobia, daughter of the Archprimeminister, and with typical lines such as: "There are some potatoes and marmalade in the back room if you require any lunch". The work was likely inspired by Harris's bohemian London surroundings, although, as Harris notes in the preface, it "was composed onboard ship during an interval of very rough weather in the Indian Ocean... perhaps it is owing to this fact that one or two little errors of logic have crept into the dialogue... The plot was suggested partly by a dream and partly by a fragment of conversation accidentally heard whilst walking along a crowded street in a foreign town".

Notably, a brief diary entry amongst the notes in the rear of one of the nonsense volumes mentions both Siefried Wagner and the nonsense books themselves, with one day referencing "Wagner games (handkerchief & blind man's bluff)" and another comprising: "breakfast, cab station, Isobel unwell, Euston, bus, Paddington, journey to Newport.... I walk up from new station, tea, others rest, I listen[?] to Siegfried, dinner, nonsense book, bed".

A fascinating, creative, and visually striking group of hitherto unknown manuscripts by this bohemian fin-de-siècle figure.