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.
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...
Performance of text
Julia Constance Fletcher
The Sketch reported that the opening was attended by Fletcher herself, who appeared on stage after the curtain fell to acknowledge the enthusiastic applause of the audience, and by other luminaries including Oscar
and Constance Wilde
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...
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...
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...
Author summary
Jane Francesca Lady Wilde
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
Julia Constance Fletcher
The full title was The Truth about Clement Ker: being an account of some curious circumstances connected with the life and death of the late Sir Clement Ker, Bart., of Brae House, Peeblesshire; told by...
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, 1973.
149n7, 69
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, 1973.
22, 157
Publishing
Katharine Tynan
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, 1916.
37
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, 1968.
44-5, 48
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, 1930, pp. 19-49.
2, 9
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, 2005.
68n71
Dixon, Ella Hepworth. “Introduction”. The Story of a Modern Woman, edited by Steve Farmer, Broadview, 2004, pp. 9-39.
37
Dixon, Ella Hepworth. The Story of a Modern Woman. Editor Farmer, Steve, Broadview, 2004.
289
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.
