While Wilde’s writings have been continuously in print and explored in film for decades, his biographies have expanded with the telling of the stories of his mother, wife, ( Wilde’s Women, Eleanor Fitzsimmons, 2015), father ( Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know: The Fathers of Wilde, Yeats and Joyce, Colm Toibin, 2018), friends ( André & Oscar: Gide, Wilde and the Gay Art of Living, Jonathan Fryer 2014), and even a lesbian relation who bore a striking resemblance to her infamous uncle, whom she would portray in drag at parties ( Truly Wilde: The Unsettling Story of Dolly Wilde, Oscar’s Unusual Niece, 2000, by Joan Schenkar).
Wilde’s son, Vyvyan, wrote Son of Oscar Wilde in 1954. Oscar’s friend Frank Harris published an early reminiscence of Wilde and one of the first biographies in 1916 (more about Harris below). Friends and colleagues put out work to leaven, as much as possible owing the times, his annihilated character ( Letters to the Sphinx From Oscar Wilde and Reminiscences of the Author by Ada Leverson, 1930). This fascination has existed since shortly after his death. ( The Fall of the House of Wilde by Emer O’Sullivan, 2016, Oscar Wilde: The Unrepentant Years by Nicholas Frankel, 2017, and Making Oscar Wilde by Michèle Mendelssohn 2018, among other titles). Skal’s Dracula book previewed an extended bibliography of early attempts to cash in on Wilde’s scandalous reputation, including 1923’s Psychic Messages from Oscar Wilde–composed when the author, Hester Dowden, was in a supposed trance (later parodied by James Joyce in Finnegans Wake).Ī quick review of books on Wilde reflect the sustained interest in his life and work. This tome could have easily extended the subtitle “And Was Terribly Afraid of Oscar Wilde.” I reviewed this book one Halloween past and recommend it, as it contains one gay revelation after another concerning Bram Stoker, with a lengthy, welcomed deviation into the exuberance of Wilde and his untimely fall from grace, which most likely sealed Stoker’s closet door shut tighter than any coffin. His emerald shadow looms large in David Skal’s lavishly illustrated Something in the Blood, the Man Who Wrote Dracula. These books about Wilde just kept coming.
This literary detective work reconstitutes Wilde’s personal library, sold en masse after his trial, Built of Books is a masterwork that unpacks the books that fueled Wilde’s extraordinary imagination and criticism. Next, I read Thomas Wright’s Built of Books: How Reading Defined the Life of Oscar Wilde, published in 2010. Suddenly, I couldn’t get enough Oscar Wilde. Instead, I found a meditative, fully fleshed out life ripe for reconsideration, one informed by familial tragedy, deep research, and unexpected insights. Infamous Lord Alfred Douglas, still upstaging Oscar with the most singular and gay line ever immortalized in poetry: “The love that dare not speak its name.” I’d expected a quick read, the prerequisite condemnations, and some salacious gossip. Bosie had been on my shelves for one decade, packed and unpacked across two boroughs and three apartments. It was for this reason and this reason alone that I devoured Douglas Murray’s Bosie: A Biography of Lord Alfred Douglas(2000) about Oscar Wilde’s historically problematic twink.
#WAS OSCAR WILDE GAY IN LATER LIFE PLUS#
The books I was then compelled to consider were a predictably weird lot–a direct reflection of my taste in general plus related ephemera. This unprecedented adventure was primarily an economic one: at the time I spent an inordinate amount of my income on books and assorted media and felt that specific cuts would help reign in what had started out as a passion but had slipped into an obsession. In 2015, I embarked upon the single bravest journey any avid reader can undertake: I publically forsook buying books for an entire year so that I might dedicate myself to reducing the teetering unread stacks I had purchased in the preceding decades. “A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.” –Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde is Still Alive! The Best Books About Oscar Wilde
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