Richard Ellmann - Oscar Wilde

So brilliant is Ellmanns account of Wildes morning and afternoon that dusk seems to fall swiftly and angrily. Ellmann is our foremost literary biographer. Wildes life was a work of art, and so is this biography.

Stephen Becker, Chicago Sun-Times

Written with consummate elegance and grace.

Denis Donoghue, New Republic

Monumental.

Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times

The best literary biography of the decadethe best written and the juiciest.

Edmund White

A splendid biography Mr. Ellmanns interpretations of Wildes essays, stories, poems, plays, letters and conversationfilled with pontifical impudence, much of it still astonishingly brilliant and unfailingly funny without being cruelenlarge this excellent book.

Richard Locke, Wall Street Journal

The best book of this or many a year Wilde is brought unforgettably to life with his curious courage, his longing for self-destruction, his vulnerability and his irresistible charm.

John Mortimer

Enthralling.

Manchester Guardian

A work of biographic art This portrait of the Victorian Ages most tragic figure surpasses Ellmanns well-known life of Joyce.

Leon Edel

Yeats: The Man and the Masks

The Identity of Teats

James Joyce

Eminent Domain

Ulysses on the Liffey

Golden Codgers

The Consciousness of Joyce

Four Dubliners

FIRST VINTAGE BOOKS EDITION, NOVEMBER 1988

Copyright 1987 by The Estate of Richard Ellmann
Copyright 1984 by Richard Ellmann

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in Great Britain by Hamish Hamilton Ltd., London, in 1987 and in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., in 1988.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to Merlin Holland for permission to use previously published and unpublished material by or relating to Oscar Wilde that is in the copyright of the Holland family.

Oscar Wilde at Oxford,by Richard Ellmann, was originally published in THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS.

Owing to limitations of space, all other acknowledgments of permission to use previously published material will be found following the index.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ellmann, Richard, 1918
Oscar Wilde.
Bibliography: p.
1. Wilde, Oscar, 18541900Biography.
2. Authors, Irish19th centuryBiography.
I. Title.
[ PR 5823. E 381988b] 828.809 [ B ] 88-40040
eISBN: 978-0-8041-5112-2

v3.1

To Lucy Ellmann

Illustrations appear following pages

This book has been under way for a long time, and I have been helped by many people. From the time I began, Sir Rupert Hart-Davis, whose edition of Wildes letters is a landmark in modern scholarship, was prodigal of his assistance; he allowed me to use his invaluable Wilde archive and to tap his profound knowledge of the period. He has also kindly read the manuscript, and I have respected his blue pencil. He has my heartfelt thanks. Dr Mary Hyde (Viscountess Eccles) graciously put at my disposal the largest collection of Wilde materials in private hands, and I owe much to her generosity. The largest institutional collection is at the William Andrews Clark Library of the University of California at Los Angeles; its successive directors, William E. Conway and Thomas Wright, as well as John Bidwell, have never failed to give the utmost help. The Ross Collection at the Bodleian Library has been a principal source. I want to thank Donald J. Kaufmann for letting me use his Wilde collection before he donated it to the Library of Congress.

Merlin Holland has kindly allowed me to quote from published and unpublished material, and has also offered other kinds of valuable assistance. Edward Colman, the holder of Lord Alfred Douglass copyrights and his literary executor, has kindly allowed the many quotations from Douglas.

Owing partly to the dispersal of Wildes papers at a bankruptcy sale, many libraries have important holdings. I mention here the Berg Collection and the Manuscript Room of the New York Public Library (NYPL in notes), the Houghton Library at Harvard, the Beinecke Library at Yale (and Miss Marjorie Wynne), the Library of Congress (LC), the Trinity College, Dublin Library (TCD), the National Library of Ireland (NLI), the British Library (BL), the Morgan Library, the Rosenbach Museum, the Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas, the Reading University Library, the Dartmouth College Library, the Princeton University Library (especially the Taylor Collection), the Radcliffe College Library, the Eastbourne (Sussex) Area Library, the Bibliothque Doucet. In many city libraries in the United States the staff unearthed press accounts of Wildes lecture tour. The archives of the Royal Literary Fund and of Magdalen and Brasenose colleges at Oxford have been useful.

The manuscript has been read by Catharine Carver, from whose criticisms I have greatly profited; by Lucy Ellmann, who made many improvements; and by Mary Ellmann, with considerable advantage. Maud Ellmann took time from her busy life to help me with the notes. Dr Paul Cohen, acting director of the Library of the New-York Historical Society, hunted down many seemingly untraceable sources. Dr John Stokes and Professor Ian Fletcher have made available to me their extraordinary knowledge of the Wilde period. J. Robert Maguire furnished me with many details of Wildes relation to the Dreyfus case. R. E. Alton deciphered for the first time the message on Queensberrys visiting card which set off the libel suit. He and Professor Donald Taylor helped with Wildes sonnet on Chatterton. Professor Barbara Hardy made many valuable suggestions. Malcolm Pinhorn, Quentin Keynes, and Jeremy Mason opened their collections to me. Dr Owen Dudley Edwards was especially kind and helpful. Rosita Fanto, with whom I collaborated on Oscar Wilde playing cards, gave me some useful hints. H. Montgomery Hyde took a benign interest.

Dr Mary Reynolds put me under great obligation by composing the elaborate index for this book.

I have many specific acts of kindness to record from the following: Professor Marcia Allentuck, Anna and Karen Bamborough, Michael Bassan, Dr John C. Broderick, Professor J. E. Chamberlin, Professor Morton N. Cohen, Dennis Cole, Roger Dobson, Robert Ellmann, Professor Charles Feidelson, Bobby Fong, Professor Peter Gay, John Hamill, Barbara Hayley, Sir William and Lady Hayter, Patrick Henchy, Tim Hilton, Michael Holroyd, Dr Roger Hood, Robert Jackson, Jeri Johnson, Professor Emrys Jones, Professor Alex de Jonge, Dr Alon Kadish, Professor John Kelleher, Dr John Kelly, Professor Roger Kempf, Clinton Krauss, Trudy Kretchman, Professor Henry Lethbridge, Professor Harry Levin, Lee Ann Lloyd, Professor J. B. Lyons, W. S. G. Macmillan, Dr Wolfgang Maier, Professor Thomas Mallon, Professor E. H. Mikhail, Professor W. M. Murphy, Milo M. Naeve, Dr Eoin OBrien, Eileen OByrne, Sen Mrdha, Johan Polak, Professor Martin and Mary Price, Ellis Pryce-Jones, Michael Rhodes, Dr. Bernard Richards, Julia Rosenthal, Professor Ernest Samuels, Professor George Sandulescu, Dr Keith Schuchard, Professor Ronald Schuchard, G. F. Sims, Professor W. B. Stanford, Dr J. I. M. Stewart, Tom Stoppard, Andrew Treip, Ruth Vyse, Elizabeth Wansborough, Wade Wellman, Terence De Vere White.