Oscar

by Sturgis, Matthew;

  48. John Sholto Douglas, the intemperate 9th Marquess of Queensberry, and Oscar’s nemesis.

  49. Robbie Ross with Reggie Turner (right), the legally-trained friend, whom Oscar jokingly dubbed ‘the boysnatcher of Clement’s Inn’.

  50. A house party at the home of Mr and Mrs Walter Palmer, Septem-ber 1892. Front from left: David Bispham, George Meredith, Jean ‘Moonbeam’ Palmer, H. B. Ir-ving. Back: Mrs Jopling, Oscar Wilde, unknown, Marie Meredith, Johnston Forbes-Robertson, Walter Palmer.

  51. One of Aubrey Beardsley’s illustrations for Salome. Oscar appears at the front as the mage-like author. Although Beardsley was obliged to add a fig-leaf to the naked page, he left unaltered the phallic candlesticks and erection-distorted robe of the fetus-like attendant.

  52. The offensive card left by Queensberry at the Albemarle Club. He claimed that it read, ‘For Oscar Wilde, posing as sodomite’. It became ‘Exhibit A’ in Oscar’s subsequent libel action against Queensberry.

  53. Edward Carson, the barrister and politi-cian, as drawn by Spy, Vanity Fair, 1893. He carried out his crossexamination of Oscar with ‘all the added bitterness of an old friend’.

  54. Sir Edward Clarke, from Vanity Fair, 1903; Oscar’s counsel in all of his three trials.

  55. The reporting of Wilde’s trials was lurid and sensational.

  56. Press drawings of Oscar’s co-defendant Alfred Taylor, and some of the witnesses brought against them.

  57. Henry Bushnell, one of Oscar’s ‘pals’ amongst the inmates at Reading Prison. Oscar arranged for the habitual thief to be sent £2 10s on his release.

  58. Ernest Dowson, the ‘persistently and perversely wonderful’ poet, who saw much of Oscar during the early days of his exile.

  59. Leonard Smithers, the ever generous but cash-strapped publisher who sought to resurrect Oscar’s career after his release from prison.

  60. Major Ferdinand Esterhazy, the real traitor in the Dreyfus Affair. Oscar professed to enjoy his com-pany, claiming ‘the guilty’ were more interesting than ‘the in-nocent’.

  61. The modest Hôtel D’Alsace in the rue des Beaux Arts, Paris, where Oscar lived, and died.

  62. Oscar on his deathbed photographed by his friend Maurice Gilbert; clearly visible is the wallpaper with which he declared he was ‘fighting a duel to the death’.

  Endpapers

  Abbreviations used in the Notes

  People

  CMW Constance Mary Wilde, née Lloyd, later Holland

  ES Edward Sullivan

  JFW Jane F. (Lady) Wilde, née Elgee, aka ‘Speranza’

  JMW James McNeill Whistler

  LAD Lord Alfred Douglas

  LVK Lotten von Kraemer

  MQ Marquess of Queensberry

  OW Oscar Wilde

  RR Robert Ross

  WCKW Willie Wilde

  WRWW Sir William Robert Wills Wilde

  Works by Oscar Wilde

  AIH An Ideal Husband

  BRG The Ballad of Reading Gaol

  LWF Lady Windermere’s Fan

  IBE The Importance of Being Earnest

  PDG The Picture of Dorian Gray

  WNI A Woman of No Importance

  The Oxford English Text series, comprising the complete works of Oscar Wilde

  OET I Poems, eds Bobby Fong and Karl Beckson (2001)

  OET II De Profundis, ed. Ian Small (2005)

  OET III The Picture of Dorian Gray, ed. Joseph Bristow (2005)

  OET IV Criticism, ed. Josephine M. Guy (2007)

  OET V Plays I, ed. Joseph Donohue (2013)

  OET VI Journalism I, eds John Stokes and Mark Turner (2013)

  OET VII Journalism II, eds John Stokes and Mark Turner (2013)

  Libraries and institutions

  Austin Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin

  Berg The Berg Collection, New York Public Library

  BL British Library

  Clark William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, UCLA, Los Angeles

  GUL Glasgow University Library

  Fales Fales Library, New York University

  Houghton Houghton Library, Harvard

  TCD Trinity College Dublin

  Yale Beinecke Library, Yale

  Other works

  Blackwood’s [Macmillan, George A.] ‘A Ride Across the Peloponnese’, Blackwood’s Magazine, 123, no. 751, May 1878

  Beckson Karl Beckson, ed., Oscar Wilde: The Critical Heritage (1970)

  CL Hart-Davis, Rupert and Merlin Holland, eds, Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde (2000)

  Coakley Coakley, Davis, Oscar Wilde: The Importance of Being Irish (1994)

  Croft-Cooke Croft-Cooke, Rupert, The Unrecorded Life of Oscar Wilde (1972)

  Dibb Dibb, Geoff, Oscar Wilde: A Vagabond with a Mission (2013)

  DNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004)

  Dulau A. Dulau & Co., A Collection of Original Manuscripts, Letters and Books of Oscar Wilde (1929)

  Ellmann Ellmann, Richard, Oscar Wilde (1987)

  Friedman Friedman, David M., Wilde in America (2014)

  Guy & Small Guy, Josephine M. and Ian Small, Oscar Wilde’s Profession: Writing and the Culture Industry in the Late Nineteenth Century (2000)

  Harris Harris, Frank, Oscar Wilde, His Life and Confessions (1916)

  Hofer & Scharnhorst Hofer, Matthew and Gary Scharnhorst, eds, Oscar Wilde in America: The Interviews (2010)

  Holland Holland, Merlin, Irish Peacock, Scarlet Marquess (2003)

  Hunter-Blair Hunter-Blair, Sir David, ‘Oscar Wilde As I knew Him’, In Victorian Days and Other Papers (1939), 115–43

  Hyde, Aftermath Hyde, H. Montgomery, Oscar Wilde: The Aftermath (1963)

  Hyde, LAD Hyde, H. Montgomery, Lord Alfred Douglas: A Biography (1984)

  Hyde, Oscar Hyde, H. Montgomery, Oscar Wilde: A Biography (1974)

  Hyde, Trials Hyde, H. Montgomery, The Trials of Oscar Wilde (1948)

  Lewis & Smith Lewis, Lloyd and Henry J. Smith, Oscar Wilde Discovers America (1936)

  Maguire Maguire, J. Robert, Ceremonies of Bravery: Oscar Wilde, Carlos Blacker, and the Dreyfus Affair (2013)

  Mason Mason, Stuart, Bibliography of Oscar Wilde (1914)

  McKenna McKenna, Neil, The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde (2003)

  Melville Melville, Joy, Mother of Oscar: The Life of Jane Francesca Wilde (1994)

  Mikhail Mikhail, E. H., ed. Oscar Wilde: Interviews and Recollections (1979)

  Morse Morse, W. F., ‘American Lectures’, in The Works of Oscar Wilde (1907)

  Moyle Moyle, Franny, Constance: The Tragic and Scandalous Life of Mrs Oscar Wilde (2011)

  NYT New York Times

  O’Sullivan O’Sullivan, Vincent, Aspects of Wilde (1936)

  OWIA Oscar Wilde in America website, www.oscarwildeinamerica.org

  Pearson Pearson, Hesketh, The Life of Oscar Wilde (1946)

  PMB Pall Mall Budget

  PMG Pall Mall Gazette

  Raffalovich/Michaelson ‘Alexander Michaelson’ [André Raffalovich], ‘Oscar Wilde’, Blackfriars VII, no. 92 (1927), reprinted in Sewell, Brocard, Footnote to the Nineties (1968)

  Ransome Ransome, Arthur, Oscar Wilde: A Critical Study (1912)

  Ricketts Raymond, Paul and Charles Ricketts, Recollections of Oscar Wilde (1932)

  Robins Robins, Ashley H., Oscar Wilde: The Great Drama of His Life (2011)

  Schroeder Schroeder, Horst, Additions and Corrections to Richard Ellmann’s Oscar Wilde (2002)

  Sherard, Life Sherard, Robert H., The Life of Oscar Wilde (1907)

  Sherard, Real Sherard, Robert H., The Real Oscar Wilde (1916)

  Sherard, SUF Sherard, Robert H., Oscar Wilde, The Story of an Unhappy Friendship (1902)

  Smith & Helfand Smith, Philip E. and Michael S. Helfand, eds, Oscar Wilde’s Oxford Notebooks (1989)

  Tipper, Hilson Tipper, Karen Sasha Anthony, ed., Lady Jane Wilde’s Letters to Mr John Hilson, 1847–1876 (2010)

  Tipper, Kraemer Tipper, Karen Sasha Anthony, ed., Lady Jane Wilde�
�s Letters to Froken Lotten von Kraemer, 1857–1885 (2014)

  Tipper, Oscar Tipper, Karen Sasha Anthony, ed., Lady Jane Wilde’s Letters to Oscar Wilde (2011)

  White White, Heather, Forgotten Schooldays: Oscar Wilde at Portora (2002)

  Wright Wright, Thomas, Oscar’s Books (2008)

  WW Woman’s World magazine

  Other works

  ts Typescript

  Endnotes

  Proem

  1 The Times, 19 December 1864, 6.

  2 Saunders’s News-Letter, 29 April 1864, quoted in Melville, 96–7.

  3 Belfast News-Letter, 19 December 1864; Miss Travers, it was said, had refused the offer of £1,000 from the Wildes to settle the case before it came to court, and had also declared her intention not to accept for her own benefit any damages that might be given to her.

  4 ‘Extraordinary “High Life” Revelations in Ireland’, Caledonian Mercury (Edinburgh), 15 December 1864.

  5 The Sunday Times, 25 December 1864, 2: ‘Notes of the Week’.

  6 The Times, 19 December 1864, 6.

  7 Belfast News-Letter, 19 December 1864. The costs have been conventionally cited as £2,000. Horace Wyndham, Speranza: A Biography of Lady Wilde (1951), 97; Terence de Vere White, The Parents of Oscar Wilde (1967), 200; Melville, 102; Ellmann, 14; Coakley, 91. The only source for this figure, however, seems to be Harris, 12, where he claims Sir William had to pay ‘a couple of thousands of pounds in costs’. And the figure should perhaps be treated with caution. £2,000, it should also be noted, was the amount that Mary Travers had claimed as damages.

  8 The Times, 20 December 1864, 6.

  Part I: The Star Child

  Chapter 1: A Small Unruly Boy

  1 Robert Perceval Graves, Life of Sir William Rowan Hamilton, vol. III (Dublin, 1889), 497.

  2 The station, the terminus of the Dublin & Kingstown commuter line, was renamed the Pearse Station in 1966; St Mark’s church is in Pearse Street. OW was christened on 26 April 1855 at the Church of St Mark, Dublin. On the certificate his names are given as ‘Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie’. ‘Wills’ was an informal addition. The service was performed by WRWW’s older brother, Ralph. There is a copy of the certificate at Clark.

  3 Gerard Hanberry, ‘Discovering Oscar Wilde in the Heart of Galway’, Wildean, 44 (2014), 99.

  4 Lotten von Kraemer diary, quoted in Elisabeth Mansén, ‘A Splendid New Picture of Jan Francesca Wilde?’, Wildean, 40 (2012), 113.

  5 Melville, 71.

  6 J. S. Blackie even described WRWW as ‘tall’; The Letters of John Stuart Blackie to his Wife, ed. Archibald Stodart Walker (1909), 227–9; Melville, 70.

  7 Melville, 54; Sir William Rowan Hamilton, letter quoted in DNB.

  8 Gerard Hanberry, ‘Discovering Oscar Wilde in the Heart of Galway’, Wildean, 44 (2014); WRWW’s mother’s name is also sometimes given as ‘Amalia Fynne’, or ‘Emily Fynn’ (as on the family gravestone at Mt Jerome).

  9 WRWW, ‘Address to the Anthropological Section of the British Association, Belfast, 1874’ in Lady Wilde, ed., Legends, Charms and Superstitions of Ireland (1919), 346.

  10 Iain Ross, Oscar Wilde and Ancient Greece (2013), 9–18.

  11 T. G. Wilson, Victorian Doctor: Being the Life of Sir William Wilde (1942), 78; Terence de Vere White, The Parents of Oscar Wilde (1967), 65.

  12 He had been initiated in 1838 while still a student; on his return to Dublin he served a term as master of the lodge.

  13 M. Hone, ed. Jack Butler Yeats Letters: Letters to his Son, W. B. Yeats and Others (1944), 277.

  14 Ransome, 22; G. B. Shaw to Frank Harris, as quoted in Stanley Weintraub, ed. The Playwright and the Pirate (1986).

  15 Melville, 26.

  16 Melville, 271–3.

  17 JFW to [John Hilson], 13 December 1847.

  18 JFW to [John Hilson], December 1848.

  19 Melville, 37–9.

  20 Ellmann, 13.

  21 J. B. Yeats to W. B. Yeats, May 1921; William M. Murphy, Prodigal Father: The Life of John Butler Yeats (1839–1922) (1978), 551 n.75.

  22 Lotten von Kraemer diary, quoted in Elisabeth Mansén, ‘A Splendid New Picture’, 113.

  23 JFW to [John Hilson], 1852, Tipper, Hilson, 56–7.

  24 DNB.

  25 JFW to John Hilson, 1852.

  26 JFW to John Hilson, 17 June 1855.

  27 Melville, 70.

  28 Barbara Belford, Oscar Wilde, A Certain Genius (2000), 3.

  29 It has been suggested that this outfit was, in some way, the guise of an Ossianic hero. See Owen Dudley Edwards, ‘Impressions of an Irish Sphinx’, in Wilde the Irishman, ed. J. McCormack (1998), 50.

  30 Elisabeth Mansén, ‘A Splendid New Picture’, 112–25, provides the best and fullest account of LVK’s various descriptions of the Wildes.

  31 JFW to LVK, 17 February 1858, in Tipper, Kramer, 13.

  32 JW to [John Hilson], 18 May 1858, in Tipper, Hilson, 69.

  33 Karen Sasha Anthony Tipper, A Critical Biography of Lady Jane Wilde (2002), 360.

  34 Wright, 31.

  35 Melville, 70; Mansén, ‘A Splendid New Picture’, 114.

  36 JFW to John Hilson, 18 May 1858, in Tipper, Hilson, 69.

  37 Melville 71–9; they were there in 1858, 1859 and 1861.

  38 JFW to LVK, 1860, in Tipper, Kraemer, 21.

  39 Tipper, Kraemer, 35, 37.

  40 Oblates of Mary Immaculate, Register of Personnel 1862–1863.

  41 Melville, 80–1; JFW began work on Eritis Sicut Deus in 1860 according to Tipper, Kraemer, 25.

  42 CL, 25.

  43 Coakley, 112–13.

  44 Rev. Lawrence Charles Prideaux Fox, ‘People I Have Met’, Donahoe’s Magazine; April 1905, quoted in Mason, 118. Fr Fox says he baptized ‘two of [Mrs Wilde’s] children’; he mentions Oscar by name and I have assumed that the other must be Willie; Isola would have been too young.

  45 Mason, 118. The date of the supposed incident is unknown. Mason suggests 1862 or 1863, but by this time the Wildes had acquired their holiday home in Bray, just a couple of miles east of Enniskerry, so it seems likely to have been earlier. Their one securely recorded visit to Enniskerry was in 1858, the year the reformatory opened, but Fr Fox suggests that they took lodgings in a farmhouse at Enniskerry several years in succession. Fr Fox did not become the superior and manager at the reformatory until 1867, though he was serving in Dublin, at Inchicore, from 1854, and could perhaps have been a visiting priest during the holidays. After that summer he never met any of the family again; this was probably because the Wildes subsequently spent their time at Bray. Fr Fox remained at Glencree until 1874. OW had later contact with Glencree Reformatory; see CL, 53. Intriguingly the inventory of William Wilde’s library (when it was sold in 1879) lists, among various works of religious history, Item 816: Rev. Patrick Power’s Catechism (2nd ed., 1864), the approved work for the instruction of Irish Catholics.

  46 O Sullivan, 63.

  47 Sherard, SUF, 78.

  48 Sherard, SUF, 78; also variant at Sherard, Life, 89-90

  49 Pearson, 21.

  50 Reggie Turner to A. J. A. Symons, 26 August 1935, in Clark.

  51 Tipper, Kraemer, 15, 17, 32, 35, 37.

  52 Melville, 76.

  53 ‘Oscar Wilde’, Biograph & Review, IV, no. 20 (August 1880), 131.

  54 Oscar Wilde, ‘Irish Poets of the Nineteenth Century’, lecture notes, ed. Michael J. O’Neill, University Review, 1 no. 4 (1955), quoted in Melville, 73. O’Brien returned to Dublin in 1856 and died in 1864 when OW was ten.

  55 Melville, 78–9.

  56 LVK, diary, in E. Mansén, ‘A Splendid New Picture’, 113–14.

  57 Davis Coakley, ‘The Neglected Years: Wilde in Dublin’, in C. George Sandulescu, ed., Rediscovering Oscar Wilde (1994), 55–6.

  58 Melville, 76.

  59 ‘Oscar Wilde’, Biograph and Review, 131.

  Chapter 2: A Fair Scholar

  1 Melville, 87; White, 10. The Christmas holidays ended that year on 29 January.
Melville states that OW began school in February. White speculates that – as the Wilde children are the last two names on the roll of twenty-three new entries – they may have arrived at the beginning of February, but offers no evidence for this. And, indeed, the school prospectus was very insistent about prompt returns from holidays. In May of the previous year, WCKW had been sent to St Columba’s School in Dublin, but the experiment was short-lived.

  2 Dublin – since the completion of the line to Enniskillen in 1859 – was barely three hours away; the journey involved a change at Drogheda, from the Dublin & Drogheda Railway, to the INW’s line to Enniskillen.

  3 The basic fees for boarders were 60 guineas a year, with additional charges for music (pianoforte), drawing, and the ‘drill-sergeant’ (as per the 1864 prospectus). Drawing and music, which both Wilde children took, cost 1 guinea a quarter, the drill-sergeant 5s. There was also a 2 guinea entrance fee (White, 38); a reduction in fees for siblings was only given in cases where three or more brothers were at the school (1866 prospectus).

  4 Herbert Beatty, quoted in White, 34.

  5 Steele to William Cotter Kyle, September 1864, quoted in White, 5.

  6 John Sullivan, quoted in White, 33.

  7 L. Purser, quoted in White, 34.

  8 John Sullivan, quoted in White, 33.

  9 Steele’s speech, and Mr Christian’s reply at 1867 dinner, in White, 93–4; see also Purser on Steele in White, 34.

  10 Press report of Steele’s 1867 prize-day address; White, 92.

  11 John Sullivan, quoted in White, 112.

  12 1867 prospectus; special ‘medals’ were awarded each year to the three pupils from the head class who came top in the Easter examinations in classics, mathematics and modern literature (English, French, German) respectively. Prizes were given to all pupils who – in the Easter, midsummer, or November examinations – achieved ‘answering averages of Sixty per cent in Classics; Fifty per cent in Mathematics; Seventy per cent in Modern Literature’ (1867 prospectus).