Oscar Wilde (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Richard Ellmann
- First Published: 1988
- Type of Work: Literary biography
- Time of Work: 1854-1900
- Setting: England, primarily London and Oxford; Paris, Greece, Rome, and the United States
- Principal Characters: Oscar Wilde, Lady Wilde (Jane Francesca Wilde), Sir William Robert Wilde, Constance Wilde, William (Willie) Robert Wilde, Robert Ross, Lord Alfred Douglas, Marquess of Queensberry (John Sholto Douglas), Frank Harris, James A. Mcneill Whistler
- Genres: Nonfiction, Biography
- Subjects: Authors or writers, Nineteenth century, Novelists
- Locales: United States, Paris, France, London, England, Rome, Italy, Greece, Oxford, England
Richard Ellmann's biography has no subtitle and needs none. Oscar Wilde presents—without limitation or special advocacy—the whole of the artist. Exhaustively researched, the book nevertheless conceals Ellmann's prodigious scholarship; he offers the oft-told tale of Wilde's life with freshness and even a measure of surprise. Ellmann views his subject as a figure out of tragedy rather than sophisticated farce. He underplays Wilde's antic wit, while amply demonstrating it, to reach the profound intelligence beneath the glittering exterior. Earlier biographies have treated Wilde...
[The entire page is 2074 words long]
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