Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Oscar Wilde
-
Standard Name: Wilde, Oscar
Birth Name: Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde
OW
's significance as poet, playwright, and writer of prose fiction, remained in eclipse for many years after his notorious trial and imprisonment in Reading Gaol
, events whose chilling impact on poetry and prose in England was not reversed until the modernists returned to the struggle for unfettered aesthetic expression. A leading proponent of art for art's sake in England, OW
was a follower of Walter Pater
, from whose work he borrows in lavish quantity, and, like Pater, he was much influenced by the French l'art pour l'art poets, notably Charles Baudelaire
and Théophile Gautier
.
Clements, Patricia. Baudelaire and the English Tradition. Princeton University Press.
140-83
More recently, his brilliant aesthetic essays have drawn serious attention as the basis for many critical propositions . . . which we like to attribute to more ponderous names.
Ellmann, Richard, editor. The Critic as Artist: Critical Writings of Oscar Wilde. Random House.
x
His notoriety as a casualty of oppressive laws against the practice of homosexuality is also the subject of a good deal of recent critical comment.
Sewell Stokes
, in a brief portrait of VC
in 1928, described her as one who had at one time been accused of poisoning the purity of British homes with her sordid writings ....
Literary responses
Violet Fane
Oscar Wilde
called Hazely Heatha beautiful gem.
Wilde, Oscar. The Letters of Oscar Wilde. Editor Hart-Davis, Rupert, Rupert Hart-Davis.
211
According to Dorothea Mosley Thompson
's entry in the Dictionary of Literary Biography, many of these poems address the trite themes of the period (which...
Literary responses
Florence Farr
Dorothy Shakespear
commented on the novel in a letter to Ezra Pound
: Such a Sargasso Sea muddle. Every body divorced several times, & in the end going back to their originals: & a young...
Literary responses
Viola Tree
Novelist Ada Leverson
(a close friend of Oscar Wilde
) wrote a parody of VT
's question-and-answer format (from the column, not the book, which appeared after her death), which mocks both VT and the...
Literary responses
Frances Burney
The reanimation of FB
's comedies is a happy story. Tara Ghoshal Wallace
edited A Busy Day in paperback in 1984. A fringe production performed in Bristol in 1993, then in Islington, London, in...
Literary responses
Constance Naden
William R. Hughes
provided for the Midland Naturalist a review of this book which CN
called kind.
Hughes, William Richard et al. Constance Naden: A Memoir. Bickers and Son.
38-9
. The Woman's World (edited by Oscar Wilde
) gave the book one of its several...
Literary responses
Michael Field
In a letter, George Meredith
called MF
's characterization of Mary an arresting study..
Field, Michael, and William Rothenstein. Works and Days. Editors Moore, Thomas Sturge and D. C. Sturge Moore, J. Murray.
71
He said he hoped that neither woman had been wounded by a most unjust review in the press.
Field, Michael, and William Rothenstein. Works and Days. Editors Moore, Thomas Sturge and D. C. Sturge Moore, J. Murray.
70
Literary responses
Alison Uttley
The fairy-story volume Mustard, Pepper and Salt, published in October 1938, was much better reviewed than AU
had become accustomed to; Books of Today likened the contents to Oscar Wilde
's fairy-tales.
Judd, Denis. Alison Uttley. Michael Joseph.
154
Occupation
Marie Corelli
From 1886, when she published her first novel, A Romance of Two Worlds, onward, MC
produced books at great speed. She was an instant success, and throughout her life she sold approximately 100,000 books...
Occupation
Ella D'Arcy
As well as a writer, EDA
was an editor, assistant to Henry Harland
on the avant-garde Yellow Book, published by John Lane
of the Bodley Head
. Sources agree on this, though she herself...
Occupation
Jane Francesca, Lady Wilde
She became so well-known as a writer that during her son Oscar
's 1882 American tour he was heralded simply as Speranza's Son.
Thesing, William B., editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 199. Gale Research.
199: 298
In later years, when his literary fame increased, she...
politics
Josephine Butler
Even after her retirement from an active public life, JB
continued to be interested in a number of international causes. She supported Home Rule in Ireland (two bills for which were defeated in 1886); she...
politics
Julia Ward Howe
In 1882 Oscar Wilde
, making his lecture tour of the USA, spoke at the Boston Music Hall. While he was in Boston he made several visits to the Howe residence, and he also...
Author summary
Natalie Clifford Barney
Natalie Clifford Barney
, though American, is best known as a Paris salonnière. She specialized in memoirs and pensées, though she also produced poetry, drama, novels, essays, and dialogues. Writing primarily in French but also...
Author summary
Ada Leverson
AL
has been best remembered for her association with Oscar Wilde
. But her six novels have never disappeared from public view or critical appreciation, and today interest has also developed in her journalism: stories...
