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, 1985.
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, 1969.
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.
"Oscar Wilde" Retrieved from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0e/Oscar_Wilde_%281854-1900%29_1889%2C_May_23._Picture_by_W._and_D._Downey.jpg.
Some of her essays and stories were also collected this year in volume 14 of The Writings of Oscar Wilde.
Thesing, William B., editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 199. Gale Research, 1999.
199: 298
Characters
Patricia Highsmith
In Ripley Under Water, 1991, on the other hand, Tom kills no-one directly, since a grotesque fatal accident removes the objects of his ire. But he and the reader are given recurring reminders of...
Cultural formation
Dinah Mulock Craik
DMC
identified strongly as a working woman across established class boundaries. She wrote towards the end of her life to Oscar Wilde
, suggesting that he should alter the name of the monthly magazine he...
Cultural formation
Evelyn Sharp
ES
was an Englishwoman (and asserted that identity in the title of her autobiography) whose mother laid claim to Welsh and to distant Italian forebears. She described her family as urban middle-class, with artistic, musical...
Cultural formation
Kate Marsden
Aspects of her identity shifted over time. KM
was born into an English, professional, presumably white family of the upper-middle class, who lost their financial security because of her father's early death. Protestant for much...
Cultural formation
Anne Carson
As a teenager, AC
fancied herself a reborn Oscar Wilde.
Wachtel, Eleanor. “An Interview With Anne Carson”. Brick: A Literary Journal, No. 89, 1 June 2012– 2024, pp. 29-53.
30
She was drawn to Wilde's aesthetic sensibility and sense of irony. She shared this affectation with some of her highschool friends. They would...
death
Jane Francesca Lady Wilde
JFLW
, commonly known under her pen-name Speranza, died of complications from bronchitis while her son Oscar
was serving his prison sentence.
Glendinning, Victoria. “Speranza: A Leaning Tower of Courage”. Genius in the Drawing-Room, edited by Peter Quennell, Weidenfield and Nicolson, 1980, pp. 101-16.
113
Dedications
Jane Francesca Lady Wilde
The first edition's dedication to her sons Willie
and Oscar
says: I taught them, no doubt, / That country's a thing one should die for at need.
qtd. in
Ellmann, Richard. Oscar Wilde. Knopf, 1988.
4-5
Later editions published as Poems by Speranza...
Education
Diana Athill
DA
was taught at home by governesses (seven successively before she was sent to school), who followed a correspondence course designed for home schooling which was known as Parents Educational National Union
. A French...
Education
U. A. Fanthorpe
She later called her boarding school (where she was sent by her parents because of the heavy wartime bombing in their home area) inadequate,
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford, 1990.
and likened its staff to Oscar Wilde
's Lady Bracknell...
Education
Anne Carson
When she was in highschool AC
's brother, four years older, liked her to do his homework for him.
These relationships coincided with KM
's reading of Oscar Wilde
. Maata Mahupuku, a Maori, had been at Miss Swainson's school with her, and they had later been together in London. Their friendship became passionate...
Family and Intimate relationships
Natalie Clifford Barney
While she never seriously entertained the proposals of most of her suitors, she seems to have considered at least one as a possible candidate for husband: Lord Alfred Douglas
, who is notorious as the...
Family and Intimate relationships
Florence Dixie
Florence's eldest brother, Lord John
, later became the notorious ninth Marquess of Queensberry, father of Lord Alfred Douglas
. It was he who destroyed Oscar Wilde
by bringing the court case against him.
Timeline
Around 1878: The Albemarle Club was formed with the plan...
Building item
Around 1878
The Albemarle Club
was formed with the plan of admitting equal numbers of men and women.
Mitchell, Sally. Frances Power Cobbe: Victorian Feminist, Journalist, Reformer. University of Virginia Press, 2004.
262
1881: Lady Harberton founded the Rational Dress...
Building item
1881
Lady Harberton
founded the Rational Dress Society
which proposed dress reform for women, denounced tight-lacing and high heels, and advocated divided skirts.
Kunzle, David. Fashion and Fetishism: A Social History of the Corset, Tight-Lacing and Other Forms of Body-Sculpture in the West. Rowman and Littlefield, 1982.
173
Gernsheim, Alison. Victorian and Edwardian Fashion: A Photographic Survey. Dover, 1981.
72
Cokayne, George Edward. The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, extant, extinct, or dormant. Editor Gibbs, Vicary, St Catherine Press, 1910–1959, 14 vols.
By 24 December 1881: Lillie Langtry became the first English society...
Building item
By 24 December 1881
Lillie Langtry
became the first English society woman to appear professionally on the stage when she played Kate Hardcastle in Goldsmith
's She Stoops to Conquer at the Haymarket Theatre
, London.
Norback, Craig T., and Melvin Gray. The World’s Great News Photos 1840-1980. Crown Publishers, 1980.
23
Hartnoll, Phyllis, editor. The Oxford Companion to the Theatre. 4th ed., Oxford University Press, 1983.
2
Athenæum. J. Lection.
2826 (1881): 861
1883: L. R. S. Tomalin, an early disciple of Gustave...
Adburgham, Alison. Shops and Shopping 1800-1914: Where, and in What Manner the Well-Dressed Englishwoman Bought Her Clothes. Allen and Unwin, 1964.
185-7
1885: Breaking with established department store...
Building item
1885
Breaking with established department store practice, Harrods
began to offer credit to select customers.
Adburgham, Alison. Shops and Shopping 1800-1914: Where, and in What Manner the Well-Dressed Englishwoman Bought Her Clothes. Allen and Unwin, 1964.
234
4 March 1885: In Marius the Epicurean, Walter Pater established...
Writing climate item
4 March 1885
In Marius the Epicurean, Walter Pater
established his view that the city was the modern topic for writers. The novel is set in Marcus Aurelius
's Rome.
Encyclopædia Britannica Online. http://www.britannica.com/.
Clements, Patricia. Baudelaire and the English Tradition. Princeton University Press, 1985.
191
November 1886: The monthly magazine Lady's World: A Magazine...
Writing climate item
November 1886
The monthly magazine Lady's World: A Magazine of Fashion and Society began publication.
Beetham, Margaret. A Magazine of Her Own?: Domesticity and Desire in the Woman’s Magazine, 1800-1914. Routledge, 1996.
217
1893: An anonymous imprint of the homoerotic novel...
Writing climate item
1893
An anonymous imprint of the homoerotic novel Teleny, in which Oscar Wilde
likely had a hand, was published in London by Leonard Smithers
.
Cook, Matt. London and the Culture of Homosexuality, 1885-1914. Cambridge University Press, 2003.
28, 104
April 1894: The aesthetic quarterly the Yellow Book began...
Writing climate item
April 1894
The aesthetic quarterly the Yellow Book began publication.
Sutherland, John, b. 1938. The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford University Press, 1989.
685
Solo: Search Oxford University Libraries Online. 18 July 2011, http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?vid=OXVU1&fromLogin=true&reset_config=true.
After 25 May 1895: Following the conviction of Oscar Wilde,...
Writing climate item
After 25 May 1895
Following the conviction of Oscar Wilde
, Edward Carpenter
's publisher broke his contract to publish Love's Coming of Age, after discovering that Carpenter had privately printed a pamphlet entitled Homogenic Love.
Craig, Alec. The Banned Books of England and Other Countries. George Allen and Unwin, 1962.
52
1903: Woman's World began publication in Londo...
Building item
1903
Woman's World began publication in London.
University of Alberta Libraries On-line Catalogue. http://www.library.ualberta.ca/.
Walkowitz, Judith R. “Women Writing / Women Performing in the Imperial Metropolis”. Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century British Women Writers Conference, Lawrence, KS, 17 Mar. 2001.
1909: The Guild of St Matthew (set up by Stewart...
Norman, Edward R. Church and Society in England, 1770-1970. Clarendon, 1976.
180
Burfield, Diana. “Theosophy and Feminism: Some Explorations in Nineteenth Century Biography”. Women’s Religious Experience, edited by Pat Holden, Croom Helm, 1983, pp. 27-56.
34
Gilley, Sheridan. “The Church of England in the Nineteenth Century”. A History of Religion in Britain, edited by Sheridan Gilley and William J. Sheils, Blackwell, 1994, pp. 291-05.
304
By 27 February 1911: The secretary of the Actresses' Franchise...
Building item
By 27 February 1911
The secretary of the Actresses' Franchise League
organised a feminist production of Wilde
's Salome (reviewed on this date).
Walkowitz, Judith R. “Women Writing / Women Performing in the Imperial Metropolis”. Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century British Women Writers Conference, Lawrence, KS, 17 Mar. 2001.
April 1918: An article in Noel Pemberton Billing's weekly...
Building item
April 1918
An article in Noel Pemberton Billing
's weekly Vigilante alleged that the Germans had identified 47,000 Britons who could be blackmailed into treason because of their deviant sexuality.
Solo: Search Oxford University Libraries Online. 18 July 2011, http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?vid=OXVU1&fromLogin=true&reset_config=true.
Walkowitz, Judith R. “Women Writing / Women Performing in the Imperial Metropolis”. Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century British Women Writers Conference, Lawrence, KS, 17 Mar. 2001.
Texts
Wilde, Oscar. A Woman of No Importance. John Lane, 1894.
Wilde, Oscar. An Ideal Husband. Leonard Smithers, 1899.
Wilde, Oscar. The Artist As Critic. Editor Ellmann, Richard, Vintage Books.
Sharp, Elizabeth A. “The Author of ’John Halifax, Gentleman’”. The Woman’s World, edited by Oscar Wilde, Vol.
1
, 1888, pp. 111-14.
Wilde, Oscar. The Ballad of Reading Gaol. Leonard Smithers, 1898.
Wilde, Oscar. The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde. Vol. 4, Criticism: Historical Criticism, Intentions, The Soul of Man. Editor Guy, Josephine M., Oxford University Press, 2007.
Wilde, Oscar. The Importance of Being Earnest. Leonard Smithers, 1899.
Wilde, Oscar. The Letters of Oscar Wilde. Editor Hart-Davis, Rupert, Rupert Hart-Davis, 1962.
Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray. Ward, Lock, 1891.