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30 Nov 00 - 01:14 PM (#349022) Subject: Oscar Wilde From: Fiolar Thought folks might like to be reminded that the great Oscar Wilde author of that magnificent poem "The Ballad of Reading Jail" passed away exactly one hundred ago today on November 30th 1900, thus keeping the promise he made - "either that wallpaper goes, or I do." He was always a man of his word. M |
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30 Nov 00 - 01:16 PM (#349025) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: Mrrzy Thank you for this, I like him and didn't realize we had an anniversary here... What a genius! |
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30 Nov 00 - 01:18 PM (#349028) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: Ringer "A handbag?" Just testing really. The forum header page showed 1 message but there were 2. Does mine make 2 or 3? |
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30 Nov 00 - 01:19 PM (#349029) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: Ringer 3 |
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30 Nov 00 - 01:33 PM (#349036) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: Matt Woodbury/Mimosa click here for A lovely site in his honor . "There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about."
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30 Nov 00 - 01:47 PM (#349054) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: Doctor John There's supposed to be a recording of Oscar Wilde reading something I forget which was broadcast in the sixties. His son - then an old man - thought it might be his father although he had not seen him since he was nine years old. This very crakly recording is the voice of what sounds like an old man and, as Oscar Wilde died young, it is now though highly unlikely to be him. What a tragic story his life was. Dr John |
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30 Nov 00 - 01:54 PM (#349063) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: okthen "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars" Thanks Oscar, if only for being the first choice,when,(in a trivia quiz) asked "who said......." cheers bill |
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30 Nov 00 - 02:34 PM (#349092) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: kendall the first time he heard the bagpipes he remarked "Thank God, there is no odor" |
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30 Nov 00 - 02:48 PM (#349098) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: Steve Latimer "The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it".
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30 Nov 00 - 04:56 PM (#349166) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: MARINER Wilde's Mother came from my home town, in fact the last of his relatives here, died 2 years ago. For those interested the Irish national broadcaster R.T.E. are now broadcasting a season of Wilde's plays and readings. Details can be had about their net broadcasts from RTE.ie. |
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30 Nov 00 - 05:10 PM (#349180) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: M. Ted (inactive) There is an Anniversary Exhibit at the British Library |
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30 Nov 00 - 05:37 PM (#349201) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: Liz the Squeak The recording was known to be a mistaken identity a few years ago, but only revealed today.... There was an excellent cartoon in Private Eye this month - obviously titled lady standing at bottom of stairs, eying up butler who is carrying something.... A sandbag???! Very topical if you've been flooded out recently, and made me laugh hysterically on the tube.... LTS |
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30 Nov 00 - 05:49 PM (#349209) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: guinnesschik "Work is the curse of the drinking class." My personal favorite... ;-) |
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30 Nov 00 - 06:02 PM (#349214) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: GUEST,JTT Sing a verse of "Taimse i mo choladh agus na gluaisigh me" in his honour; Wilde used to sing his sons to sleep with this savagely nationalistic lullaby with its charming and calm melody. |
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30 Nov 00 - 06:12 PM (#349228) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: lamarca Saw the absolutely fantastic Art Nouveau exhibit at the Smithsonian last weekend, complete with a vintage Aubrey Beardsley print from Wilde's "Salome"... Just a digression, but it was kind of funny how many originals of the art that decorated my college dorm room were in this show - Beardsley, Klimt, Moreau, Redon...
"I took all those habits of yours I'm older now, but still like the edge of depravity the Symbolists and Secessionists skirted... Rest you merry, Mr. Wilde. |
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30 Nov 00 - 06:20 PM (#349238) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: Liz the Squeak Lamarca, howling with tears here, that's a verse from my all time weepy song.... first love and all that..... but I have a Beardsley print in the bathroom.... wentto an amazing exhibition in the Victoria & ALbert museum 2 years ago. He loved trying to get rude bits past the censors, and suceeded more times than they like to admit....! Wilde has been a favorite for years. His statue by St Martin's in the Fields, London is bloody good too. It's doubtful he's resting, but I suspect he's very merry indeed! LTS |
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30 Nov 00 - 06:29 PM (#349246) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: lamarca Liz, the Victoria and Albert put this exhibit together first, then shipped it over to us Yanks to give us a bit of culture! (If you consider Salome worshipping JtB's dripping head to be culture...) |
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30 Nov 00 - 07:54 PM (#349280) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: Jim Dixon In my former life as an amateur actor, I had a small role in "Salomé." I think my character was called "2nd soldier." Most of my lines were repetitions of "The tetrarch has a somber look." -- "Yes, he has a somber look." Though the play was supposed to be serious, there where times when it was hard to keep from laughing. |
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30 Nov 00 - 11:35 PM (#349407) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: Mickey191 "Puritanism: The haunting fear that somewhere, someone is having a good time."If they'd only let him alone. |
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01 Dec 00 - 06:21 AM (#349474) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: GUEST,D_hand my favorite wilde quote is: 'When God wishes to punish us He answers our prayers' Meaning of course that we don't know what's good for us !! |
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01 Dec 00 - 08:29 AM (#349523) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: LR Mole From Dorothy Parker:" If, with the literate, I am/ Impelled to try an epigram,/ I never seek to take the credit;/We all assume that Oscar said it." (Our Dottie:now, there's a woman who should be sung!) |
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01 Dec 00 - 09:15 AM (#349554) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: GUEST Edith Evans' role as Lady Bracknell in the 1952 movie "The Importance of Being Earnest" and her marvellous "A Handbag" will never be bettered. Wilde, I think would have been most impressed. Incidentally, Michael MacLiamoir did a one man show some years ago called "The Importance of Being Oscar." I recall him talking about the show and other Wildean matters on television. Most funnny was the bit where he told of his father trying to explain to him of Wilde's homosexuality. M |
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01 Dec 00 - 09:20 AM (#349557) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: Liz the Squeak Let's hear it for JtB's dripping head - I loved that picture as a child and still do! I must confess to a liking for 'How Arthur quested for the dragon' because a) it's a bloody fine drawing, b) there's a big dragon in it, and c) there's a big willy that got past the censors!! LTS |
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01 Dec 00 - 11:32 AM (#349628) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: Peter K (Fionn) For me he's the author of The Soul of Man under Socialism and for my 8-yr-old daughter he's the writer of favourite stories such as The Happy Prince and The Canterville Ghost. Fiolar, as the only person I know who can recite the Ballad of Reading Gaol (sic) from memory, I am sorry to say that it is just about the least impressive thing he ever wrote; not a patch on his early poems(eg Requiescat) and certainly not in the same league as the plays. He wrote the ballad more or less to order. A leading prison reformer, aware that the educated people of those days had virtually no first-hand knowledge of life inside, had urged him to publish his impressions. Oscar left prison apparently intending to campaign for reform. But apart from the ballad, his only other initiative was a letter to the News Chronicle, written in defence of a warder dismissed for giving a biscuit to an ill child jailed for stealing a rabbit. The ballad seems to have been influenced by Housman's wonderful epic, A Shropshire Lad, which also takes a swipe at capital puhishment, but with less sentimentality. He had two chances to evade so-called British justice, and head for France. Brave decisions. Two yeas imprisonment with hard labour (no remission) was a travesty, but he did know that shagging rent-boys was a criminal offence in those unenlightened times. (The legislation, which dated from 1885, had been criticised from the outset as a blackmailer's charter. but in the end one of the rent boys refused a deal in which he would have been acquitted in echange for testifying against Wilde. So he also got the maximum sentence.) Apparently that exhibition at the British Library is one of the best collections of Wilde material ever assembled. It runs until some time in February. |
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01 Dec 00 - 11:51 AM (#349638) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: GUEST,Pete Peterson My very favorite Oscar was the very first one mentioned! I give second place to "The most useless of memories, in old age, are those of temptation successfully resisted." and many others along the same lines. |
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01 Dec 00 - 12:10 PM (#349651) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: Roger in Sheffield To mark the date in the UK we had the enlightened Baroness Young protesting at the lowering of the gay age of consent to 16 Also a protest letter in the Daily Telegraph (about the same OUTRAGE) from religious leaders had 17 signatories, the season of goodwill is almost upon us - but not you queers??? What ever happened to Bowsey? Roger |
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01 Dec 00 - 01:22 PM (#349707) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: Fiolar "The Ballad of Reading Jail" may not be his best work but it was and is a powerful piece of work especially the part where he describes the grave of the executed man - "For he has a pall, this wretched man, Such as few men can claim: Deep down below a prison-yard, Naked for greater shame, He lies, with fetters on each foot, Wrapt in a sheet of flame." Also the verses dealing with the work the convicts did has never been so vividly described - "We tore the tarry rope to shreds With blunt and bleeding nails; We rubbed the doors, and scrubbed the floors, And cleaned the shining rails: And, rank by rank, we soaped the plank, And clattered with the pails." Let's not forget that when that poem was published there was little if any such descriptions of prison life as most of the Victorian works dealt with nature and other nice subjects. There were of course exceptions such as "The Cry of the Children" and "The Ancient Mariner." Wilde was an exception to the rule and of course we all know who acted as prosecution lawyer, his former "friend" Edward Carson. M |
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01 Dec 00 - 01:33 PM (#349713) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: GUEST,Matt_R The Importance of Being Earnest is one of my favorite plays ever! When my community college did a dramatic reading of it, I played Algy. What fun! When at the customs counter at a train staion, the customs man asked him if he anything to declare. Oscar said "Only my genius." --Matt (confirmed Bunburyist) |
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01 Dec 00 - 01:37 PM (#349716) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: GeorgeH I've not seen this mentioned here (but my visits remain somewhat erratic) . . Currently BBC 2 is running an excellent series on the development of the contemporary British (well, English might be more accurate!) theatre; "Changing Stages", Sundays. The second programme dealt with the Irish influence at the start of the century and Wilde featured strongly. (It was a pity the "Wilde Heritage" tour of Dublin(?) they showed managed totally the wrong emphasis on ". . the Brighton side" - clearly THEY hadn't done their homework, and I'm surprised Richard Eyre let it pass.) Incidently, the same programme used the first AfroCelt Sound System CD for almost all its soundtrack - and a wonderful soundtrack it was, too . . Of course this was NOT acknowledged in the programme credits! G. |
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01 Dec 00 - 02:50 PM (#349745) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: GUEST,JTT I couldn't disagree more; I find Reading Gaol deeply moving. Just shows you, tastes differ. |
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01 Dec 00 - 03:57 PM (#349778) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: Amergin Personally, I always loved that beautiful tale, The Selfish Giant....everytime I read it tears come to my eyes. Amergin |
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01 Dec 00 - 05:08 PM (#349837) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: Jim Dixon Roger in Sheffield: Sad to say, "Bosie," Lord Alfred Douglas, came to believe his father was right after all. He married (and was later separated), denounced Wilde, converted to Roman Catholicism, and apparently never afterward practiced The Love That Dared Not Speak Its Name. Here is a New York Times book review of "BOSIE: A Biography of Lord Alfred Douglas," by Douglas Murray. Here are a couple more sites that contain some interesting information: The Bosie Web-Site and The Unofficial Lord Alfred Douglas Page. |
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01 Dec 00 - 08:28 PM (#349925) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: GUEST,Sarah My favorite Wilde quotes still remain: "No good deed goes unpunished." ..and his reply to U.S. immigration upon being asked if he had anything to declare: "Nothing but my genius." Much used, but, both so true... Sarah |
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01 Dec 00 - 09:06 PM (#349941) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: Lyrical Lady I played Miss Prism in The Importance of being Ernest. It was the most fun I've ever had being in a play! LL |
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02 Dec 00 - 01:39 PM (#350234) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: GUEST,Sarah Didn't he also say, about his prison term, "If this is the way the Queen treats her prisoners, she doesn't deserve to have any"? |
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02 Dec 00 - 02:21 PM (#350263) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: Roger in Sheffield Thanks Jim now I know more of both sides of the story Roger |
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02 Dec 00 - 07:31 PM (#350417) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: pict I asked my pal Pat a Dubliner what he thought of Oscar Wilde he said"He was a professional smartarse". |
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02 Dec 00 - 07:50 PM (#350435) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: Peter K (Fionn) The ballad is certainly moving JTT - the first time I recited it in public a woman was in tears at the end. (But another shouted out: "So domestic violence is OK - is that what you're saying?") But as poetry it's a bit laboured. The imagery is often crude or trite: "the Governor all in shiny black /With the yellow face of Doom" and as with De Profundis the effect is sometimes undermined by self-pity that sometimes creeps in. Housman is much less sentimental, and probably more effective for that reason: "There sleeps in Shrewsbury jail tonight/Or wakes as may betide, A better lad if things went right/Than most that sleep outside." Incidentally, Bosie, who was himself an accomplished poet, wrote a sonnet about Wilde ("Dead Poet"?) - intensely moving, and also fine verse, see Bosie's sonnet about Wilde ("Dead Poet"?) I don't think you've been entirely fair to Bosie, Jim. Though De Profundis was a private letter from Wilde to Bosie, Bosie never received it and learnt of its bitterness towards him only when extracts appeared in a book, many years after Wilde's death. He himself was then embittered for some years, but he got that out of his system long before he died (1945). Through Wilde's trials and afterwards, Bosie was almost recklessly disregarding of his own reputation in his support, though there is evidence that some in Wilde's (diminishing) circle wanted Wilde to break with him. They met in Italy after Wilde's release from prison, and Bosie was chief mourner at Wilde's funeral. Bosie did convert to catholicism, but I was not aware that he ever had anything but contempt for his father. |
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02 Dec 00 - 07:55 PM (#350438) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: Peter K (Fionn) Sorry - you will have realised I should have deleted some words at the end of the penultimate paragraph in my last post. |
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02 Dec 00 - 09:17 PM (#350495) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: Den Can you imagine what it was like to sit down to dinner with him? "Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast," one of my favourites and also, "Alas I am dying beyond my means." And this one always cracks me up, "Whenever cannibals are on the brink of starvation, Heaven in its infinite mercy sends them a nice plump missionary." Den |
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03 Dec 00 - 07:30 PM (#350852) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: rube1 I recently slogged through De Profundis, a long angry letter with moments of high brilliance interspersed with the most painstakingly tedious delineations of his ill treatment at the hands young Douglas and his father. With obviously way too much time on his hands, he left precious few grievances unuttered. How painful it is, as a reader, to witness the exhaustion of his massive creative spirit as it pours into this seemingly endless diatribe. Never seen anything like it. Glad I read it. Can't picture the circumstances in which I might ever want to read it again. But something about it is magnetic and someday I probably will. |
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03 Dec 00 - 08:23 PM (#350871) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: Lonesome EJ While on a tour of America,Wilde visited Central City,a rough-and-tumble mining town in Colorado.He insisted on having a drink at the local worker's tavern,where he attracted a lot of attention with his foppish attire and outlandish manner.The miners had never seen anything quite like Oscar before,and one of them made a comment about the bar being "for men only". Wilde responded by buying a whiskey for the man,who then bought Wilde a double-whiskey,and so on. The drinking bout continued into the night,the sullen miner downing his drinks while Wilde entertained the crowd with his humorous stories.At last,the miner passed out,and as he was being carried out,Wilde climbed atop a table and lifted his glass in the man's honor saying "though he has acquired the ability to drink much,he has not yet learned to drink well to the remedy of which,gentleman,I shall be available on tomorrow night for further lessons." |
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03 Dec 00 - 08:49 PM (#350882) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: Stewie 'Don't shoot the piano player - he's doing his best'. |
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04 Dec 00 - 07:16 PM (#351407) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: pict I like the one where he was at a ball when he was a boy,he went up to a woman and asked her if she would give him the pleasure of the next dance to which she exclaimed"You expect me to dance with a child?" Oscar replied"Madame if I'd known you were in that condition I would never have asked". |
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04 Dec 00 - 08:37 PM (#351460) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: Troll I've always liked,"Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same." And, "Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes." troll |
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04 Dec 00 - 10:33 PM (#351518) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: Rick Fielding Ahh, good ol' Oscar. I love the designation "Professional Smartass". If the pay were better, I'd like to give it a try myself. Did anyone see the bio-pic with Stephen Fry? Nobody alive today really knows, but my guess is that Fry really nailed the character. My guess is also, that surrounding the witty remarks was a personality with a VERY short shelf-life. As many here know, my great philosophical hero was Quentin Crisp, but short of seeing him in concert once and laughing at his writing, I don't think I would have wanted to spend much time around him. His theories on enjoying being an "outsider" still strike me as being spot on, but (I guess) that like Oscar, when the spotlight was off he could be very trying. Rick |
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05 Dec 00 - 01:39 PM (#351832) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: Jim Dixon Rick: If you like Wilde and Crisp, you might like the writings of Stephen Fry. I recommend his autobiography, "Moab Is My Washpot," and his collection of columns from (I think) the Telegraph, called "Paperweight." He also writes novels. One that I liked was "Making History." |
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05 Dec 00 - 03:52 PM (#351923) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: Rowana (at work) A girlfriend and I saw the film earlier this year. S Fry was great in it. I see that the Express has given grandson Merlin Holland's new book _The Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde_ a lukewarm review. Regarding Stephen Fry: _Hippopotomus_ was a very funny book. |
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05 Dec 00 - 03:58 PM (#351925) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: Uncle_DaveO For Wilde aficianados, I recommend a fairly recent movie made from his "An Ideal Husband". Wonderful! Get the VCR and see it! Dave Oesterreich |
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05 Dec 00 - 10:17 PM (#352136) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: John Nolan If this nostalgic thread is going to splutter on forever, I'll post a picture of Oscar's tombstone (a sphinx-like thing) which I took in Pere Lachaise Cemetery last summer, and give the link - ignore the skinny tomato plant temporarily irritating the sphinx's nostrils though. It's there for a long and complex reason that you don't want to know about. |
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06 Dec 00 - 08:55 AM (#352299) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: GeorgeH The complete letters of anyone - even O Wilde - are likely to contain a fair bit of dross, IMO . . G. |
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06 Dec 00 - 09:05 PM (#352737) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: GUEST,Sarah John Nolan, Sez who? Now you've done it -- I may not sleep tonight, wondering about the tomato plant in the sphinx's nostril. C'mon, give it up...tell it all, brother; tell it all! And please DO post the photo. Sarah |
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07 Dec 00 - 02:19 AM (#352911) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: katlaughing That is a great site, Mimosa, thanks! kat |
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09 Dec 00 - 09:44 PM (#354239) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: John Nolan Sarah: Oscar Wilde's tombstone is the fifth tomato down on the left at www.stephaniepiro.com/fcpart5tomato.htm |
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10 Dec 00 - 05:02 AM (#354349) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: Fiolar After 105 years an English artist Royston du Maurier has settled Oscar Wilde's unpaid bill of Three Pounds, Six Shillings at James Long and Company of London. The firm made hats. Oscar cab now rest in peace. M |
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10 Dec 00 - 01:04 PM (#354479) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: GUEST,Sarah John Nolan: Thanks! A fun read! And now I can get some sleep again... Fiolar: Three cheers for du Maurier -- a gentleman true! Sarah |
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21 Dec 00 - 09:55 PM (#361504) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: Peter K (Fionn) Rubel, just a belated word to say that's a really neat critique of De Profundis. Exactly my own reaction, but I'd have had to use a lot more words to get it across. Rick, I'm aware of your longstanding respect for Quentin Crisp. Believe me, Oscar had all his qualities in spades, and maybe even some more. Try to read what he said in the witness box and in the dock at his trials (all of which had to be genuinely ad-libbed of course); the Soul of Man Under Socialism, and the Ballad, which even if not fine verse, shows the depth of the man, and how enormously compassionate he was. It's almomst regrettable that he was so clever - it has tended to obscure his other qualities (which is true of QC too, in terms of how he is generally perceived and remembered). I think you're right about Stephen Fry though - I'm sure he got as near to the man as we're ever going to get. |
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22 Dec 00 - 07:28 PM (#361986) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: Jim Dixon I've heard there is an Irish band called the Wild Oscars. Anybody know anything about them? |
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22 Dec 00 - 08:52 PM (#362029) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: John Nolan Haven't heard of the Wild Oscars, but in Glasgow rhyming slang, someone departing the company will often say, "See you Oscar." This refers neither to Oscars Wilde nor Wild, but to one Oscar Slater, who was hung for murder. See you Oscar (Slater) = See you later! |
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22 Dec 00 - 11:02 PM (#362095) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: bflat "Who,being loved,is poor?"--Oscar Wilde. I guess he never experienced divorce. |
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16 Oct 05 - 08:35 AM (#1584023) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: freda underhill As long as war is regarded as wicked it will always have its fascinations. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular." Oscar Wilde (born, 16 October 1854 - Happy 151st birthday, Oscar!!) |
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16 Oct 05 - 08:51 AM (#1584030) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: Le Scaramouche In the Fry film, you really get the impression of how prison must have broken Wilde. I do mean physicaly as much as emotionaly. As an historical novelist, I'm very partial to Oscar's 'Decay of Lying'. |
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16 Oct 05 - 03:00 PM (#1584223) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: Don(Wyziwyg)T The quote that epitomises Wilde's swift wit is his response to a hostess: Hostess:- "Mr Wilde, are you enjoying yourself?" Oscar:- "Madam there is nobody else here to enjoy." Don T. |
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16 Oct 05 - 10:23 PM (#1584370) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: Elmer Fudd Blessings on your birthday, dear, tormented Oscar. Amongst the many brilliant epigrams: "If one tells the truth, one is sure, sooner or later, to be found out." and "I can resist anything except temptation." FYI to bflat: Oscar did know divorce. His wife's relatives forced her to divorce him while he was in prison, and to change her and their children's last name to "Holland." Elmer |
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17 Oct 05 - 09:47 PM (#1585000) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: GUEST,Joe_F Housman himself wrote a sarcastic poem in defense of Wilde -- a courageous thing to do, for he was (as we now say) a closeted gay. It was published posthumously by his brother: Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrists? And what has he been after that they groan and shake their fists? And wherefore is he wearing such a conscience-stricken air? Oh they're taking him to prison for the color of his hair. (Additional Poems, XVIII) --- Joe Fineman joe_f@verizon.net ||: Grammar: ethology or ethics? :|| |
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18 Oct 05 - 09:22 PM (#1585814) Subject: RE: Oscar Wilde From: GUEST,weelittledrummer I always think of oscar when I pass Bingham Notts. apparently one his university friends was the son of the vicar of Bingham. Oscar was a visitor to the vicarage and he fell in love with the vicar's daughter, but her dad didn't like the cut of his jib. Richard Ellman wrote great biographies of both Wilde and Joyce. the ellman is pretty damn good but it lacks the narrative drive of the Hesketh Pearson book that they based the Peter Finch film on. I remember once I thought to myself why didn't Ellman mention this incident - of course when I checked, he had done with even more detail - but with less narrative elan. all the best you wilde men and ladies out there al |