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.
Jane Francesca, Lady Wilde
, remains best known for her fierce Irish Nationalist poems published in the Nation under the pseudonym Speranza. She became known too for her translations of both poetry and fiction...
Publishing
Ada Leverson
AL
published in PunchThe Minx—A Poem in Prose, which parodies Wilde
's long poem The Sphinx.
Burkhart, Charles. Ada Leverson. Twayne.
22, 157
Publishing
Ada Leverson
AL
dated a note which prefaces Letters to the Sphinx from Oscar Wilde, published that year in a limited edition of 275 copies, with her reminiscences of Wilde
.
Leverson, Ada, and Oscar Wilde. “Reminiscences of the Author”. Letters to the Sphinx from Oscar Wilde, Duckworth, pp. 19-49.
2, 9
Publishing
Jane Francesca, Lady Wilde
Jane Francesca, Lady Wilde
, contributed the poem Historic Women to The Woman's World, edited by her son Oscar
.
Thesing, William B., editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 199. Gale Research.
199: 303
Publishing
Charlotte Mew
The story was rejected by The Yellow Book in January 1895 as too long (although they had recently printed a longer story by Henry James
).
Stanford, Donald E., editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 19. Gale Research.
309
Fitzgerald, Penelope. Charlotte Mew and Her Friends. Collins, p. 240 pp.
KT
wrote a series of articles on Women of the Poets for Oscar Wilde
's journal The Woman's World
Tynan, Katharine. The Middle Years. Constable.
37
Publishing
Ella Hepworth Dixon
EHD
published her first article in Oscar Wilde
's journal Woman's World, a piece entitled Murder—or Mercy? A Story of To-day. She also became the editor of the journal this year.
Fehlbaum, Valerie. Ella Hepworth Dixon: the Story of a Modern Woman. Ashgate.
68n71
Dixon, Ella Hepworth. “Introduction”. The Story of a Modern Woman, edited by Steve Farmer, Broadview, pp. 9-39.
37
Dixon, Ella Hepworth. The Story of a Modern Woman. Editor Farmer, Steve, Broadview.
289
Publishing
Alice Meynell
AM
stopped publishing with John Lane
after Oscar Wilde
's conviction.
Schaffer, Talia. The Forgotten Female Aesthetes: Literary Culture in Late-Victorian England. University Press of Virginia .
172
Publishing
Martin Ross
MR
and Edith Somerville
first attempted full-scale literary collaboration; that month Oscar Wilde
, editor-elect of The Woman's World, accepted an article by them.
Collis, Maurice. Somerville and Ross: A Biography. Faber and Faber.
44-5, 48
Publishing
Ella Hepworth Dixon
As a member of the Yellow Book circle, named for the illustrated quarterly largely initiated by Wilde
, EHD
naturally wrote for this journal as well. It too turned out to be less radical than...
Publishing
Natalie Clifford Barney
The book was published by Ollendorff
in Paris, with a frontispiece by Carolus Duran
: a portrait of NCB
posing as Wilde
's Happy Prince.
Chalon, Jean. Portrait of a Seductress: The World of Natalie Barney. Translator Barko, Carol, Crown.
51
Elliott, Bridget, and Jo-Ann Wallace. Women Artists and Writers: Modernist (im)positionings. Routledge.
31
Publishing
Amy Levy
AL
published articles in many periodicals, particularly the Cambridge Review (from 9 June 1880), Temple Bar (from the same year), the popular magazine London Society (from 1883), the Jewish Chronicle, the Star (from 3...
Publishing
Ada Leverson
AL
(who may or may not have been already acquainted with Oscar Wilde
) published in the humorous magazine PunchAn Afternoon Party, a parody of his Dorian Gray.
Burkhart, Charles. Ada Leverson. Twayne.
149n7, 69
Reception
Jane Francesca, Lady Wilde
Following the death of her husband
, JFLW
wrote to Sir Thomas Larcom
, hoping he could help secure her a government pension.
Melville, Joy. Mother of Oscar. John Murray.
143
In his reply, Larcom explained that only the Prime Minister could...
Reception
Jane Francesca, Lady Wilde
By 16 November 1888, she had also received a grant of £100 from the Royal Literary Fund
. Her son Oscar Wilde
helped her to secure both pensions.
Melville, Joy. Mother of Oscar. John Murray.
222
Leighton, Angela, and Margaret Reynolds, editors. Victorian Women Poets: An Anthology. Blackwell.
