Scanning in Wild About Wilde: Oscar Wilde’s art and life

I’ve been working on scanning in my Oscar Wilde publication, Wild About Wilde, for the past few months and now have up to issue # 9 available. There are a total of 21 issues and eventually they will all be available on this site.

I published and edited this newsletter on all aspects of Wilde’s art and life from 1986 until 1996. It contains essays and commentary on all of Wilde’s writings as well as reviews of Wilde plays.  You may even learn about some of his poetry that you might not previously have known about. I had a lot of fun during those years producing this publication and was fortunate  to have had many quality contributors who made Wild About Wilde a valuable resource in the study of Wilde.  It has the honour of being recognised and listed by the Modern Language Association [MLA] in the International Bibliography and the Directory of Periodicals. The MLA is the professional association in the United States for scholars of language and literature.

Wilde was a great Irishman, born in Dublin in 1854, who dominated the London stage in the late 19th century.  His famous wit and powerful personality also dominated London society during that time.  André Gide quoted Wilde as saying of himself: “I have put all my genius into my life; I have put only my talent into my works”. Oscar Wilde was the embodiment of the Fin de siècle aesthetic culture that characterised artistic expression in the late 1800s. He had huge success when he visited and did a lecture tour of the United States in 1882  – even visiting a silver mine in Leadville, Colorado and lecturing the bemused miners on art.   His Irish nationalist mother had a strong influence on his life and personality.  Writing under the pseudonym ‘Speranza’ she wrote poetry and patriotic Irish articles – described by the British authorities as “inflammatory” at the time – for the Dublin based newspaper The Nation, founded by the Irish separatists Charles Gavan Duffy and Thomas Davis.

As Wild About Wilde was published in the days prior to the internet it was produced only in hard copy and mailed out to universities, libraries, bookshops and individuals.   I have been asked by a number of people to make it available to scholars and Wilde enthusiasts online so I am in the process of putting each edition onto this website.  It’s a fairly long process as it was never previously in an electronic format.  But I am getting there!

If you click on the My Publications link above it will bring you to the links for the WAW issues that I have already prepared.