Wider World Of Wilde

Biography shines light on icon’s wits, writs, writings and woes.

- Linda Herrick

With so much already known about the life of flamboyant Anglo-Irish writer Oscar Wilde, is there anything new to learn? Absolutely, argues Matthew Sturgis, making the case in an authoritative, even-handed and epic new biography.

Sturgis, an expert in late-Victorian culture and a board member of the Oscar Wilde Society journal The Wildean, notes that when he was in New York doing research for the project, he passed a pub sign proclaiming, “Work is the curse of the drinking classes”. The same day, at Columbia University, a student was wearing a T-shirt inscribed, “Genius is born, not paid”. Wilde’s wit, from more than 100 years ago, is ingrained in our contemporary language.

His life has been documented in book form many times, notably in Richard Ellmann’s 1987 Oscar Wilde, and he is back on screen being played by Rupert Everett in The Happy Prince. But, says Sturgis, a surge of new research and the digitisation of archives demand essential additions.

Moreover, he adds, books like Ellmann’s skipped over Wilde’s younger years and dashed towards his “Greek tragedy” – the sex scandals and his imprisonment – distorting his achievements. Instead, Sturgis sets out to craft a fuller picture with a historian’s careful eye.

As he moves through Wilde’s childhood, education and career, he throws in a mass of detail that might be head swimming for some, but pure manna for Wilde obsessives.