Summer lunch at Magdalen College with tour of the Old Library and the Archives (Members Only)

This ever-popular event in the Society’s calendar will start, as usual, with Pimm’s served in Chaplain’s Quadrangle and a recital of ‘Magdalen Walks’. Our guest at lunch will be Ben Taylor, who will conduct a tour. It is many years since we visited the Archives and the last time we visited the Old Library was in 2011. Ben tells us that the exhibits will include the window from Oscar’s rooms on which he scratched a drawing of ‘Little Mr Bouncer’ (his friend William ‘Bouncer’ Ward) with a diamond. For many years this was thought to have been smashed in the course of some college festivities and lost but the jagged broken pane with the drawing was rediscovered in 2003 in a mouldering package in Magdalen’s Works Department.

We shall also see the Oxford Diary of Florence Ward, ‘Bouncer’ Ward’s seventeen year-old sister. With a sharp eye for social comedy she kept a detailed record, illustrated with her sketches, of the visit she made in June 1876 for Commemoration Week.

The cost per head for members and guests (one guest per member) is £72 which covers a glass of Pimm’s followed by a three course meal.

We have a limited number of places so, as ever, it will be ‘first come, first served’.

Please pay by PayPal to: membership@oscarwildesociety.co.uk noting ‘Magdalen lunch’ in the message box.

Or send a cheque, payable to the Oscar Wilde Society, to Silvia Melchior, Events Secretary.

Please indicate whether you would like to have the vegetarian option.