1995
First Published
3.86
Average Rating
232
Number of Pages
Wilde the writer is known to us from his plays and prose fiction, yet it was in his conversation that his genius reached its summit. His talk is lost, his autobiography was never written, but his letters reveal him at his spontaneous, sparkling best. Of all 19th-century letter writers Oscar Wilde is, predictably, one of the most brilliant. Fluent in style, these letters bear that most familiar of Wildean hallmarks - the lightest of touches for the most serious of subjects. He comments openly on his life and his work, from the early years of undergraduate friendship, through his year-long lecture tour in America as a striving young "Professor of Aesthetics", to the short period of fame and success in the early 1890s, when he corresponded with many leading political, literary and artistic figures of the time. Disgrace and imprisonment followed, but even in adversity his humour does not desert him. In this volume Merlin Holland has brought together his most revealing letters with a helpful commentary and some previously unpublished photographs. Together they form the closest thing we have to Wilde's own memoir.
Avg Rating
3.86
Number of Ratings
29
5 STARS
28%
4 STARS
52%
3 STARS
0%
2 STARS
21%
1 STARS
0%
goodreads
Author
Oscar Wilde
Author · 213 books
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish playwright, poet, and author of numerous short stories, and one novel. Known for his biting wit, and a plentitude of aphorisms, he became one of the most successful playwrights of the late Victorian era in London, and one of the greatest celebrities of his day. Several of his plays continue to be widely performed, especially The Importance of Being Earnest. As the result of a widely covered series of trials, Wilde suffered a dramatic downfall and was imprisoned for two years hard labour after being convicted of "gross indecency" with other men. After Wilde was released from prison he set sail for Dieppe by the night ferry. He never returned to Ireland or Britain, and died in poverty.
