6/21/2023 0 Comments Oscar wilde books![]() And he never missed an opportunity to meet anyone whose name could be dropped at the next social event - Walt Whitman, Louisa May Alcott, Ulysses S. Surprisingly, his breakthrough “literary” success was as a public speaker in the early 1880s, during a lecture circuit from New York to San Francisco and back, he “conquered” America as utterly as the Beatles would 70 years later. His first great literary invention was himself. ![]() “Nothing succeeds like excess,” Wilde famously said, but then Wilde famously said a lot of things it’s hard to think of any artist who has been more frequently and happily quoted. ![]() When a story went round that he paraded down Piccadilly with a lily in his hand, Wilde remarked, “Anyone could have done that.” Instead he had achieved “the great and difficult thing” of making the “world believe” he had done it. When popular lampoons of the “aesthetes” began appearing as cartoons in Punch or as musicals on the West End stage, Wilde hurriedly claimed credit for them - whether they were based on him or not. The first two-thirds is as bright and entertaining as an evening with its subject the final third describes one of the saddest stories ever told. While Sturgis doesn’t approach his subject with Ellmann’s critical intensity, he includes much new material, especially recovered testimonies from Wilde’s reputation-ending trials in 1895. Matthew Sturgis’ new book, “Oscar Wilde: A Life,” the first major biography since Richard Ellmann’s in 1987, provides an excellent opportunity to revisit and re-enjoy the fabulous genius of Wilde. Beyond the wall I see nothing.”Įven though many books have been written about Wilde, he continues to attract good scholars. As a prominent London spiritualist told him before his first libel trial: “I see a very brilliant life for you up to a certain point. And after confessing early that his main aims in life were “success fame or even notoriety,” he lived to achieve all three. As a student at Oxford, Wilde was attracted by the idealized homoerotic images of Greek culture, which led him to an increasingly unashamed presentation of himself as a man who adored (and was often adored by) younger men. ![]() Long before Wilde’s infamous libel case, his father sued the family’s nanny for claiming he drugged and molested her. Oscar Wilde’s life reads almost like a perfectly formed work of art - one in which each early success bristles with portents of tragedy to come. If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from, whose fees support independent bookstores. ![]()
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