Editing Oscar Wilde (section)

== Prose writing: 1886–1891 ==

=== Journalism and editorship: 1886–1889 ===
[[File:A Wilde time 3.jpg|thumb|left|alt=A tall man rests on a chaise longue, facing the camera. On his knees, which are held together, he holds a slim, richly bound book. He wears knee breeches which feature prominently in the photograph's foreground.|Wilde reclining with ''Poems'', by [[Napoleon Sarony]] in New York in 1882. Wilde often liked to appear idle, though in fact he worked hard; by the late 1880s he was a father, an editor and a writer.{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|p=289}}]]

Criticism over artistic matters in ''[[The Pall Mall Gazette]]'' provoked a letter of self-defence, and soon Wilde was a contributor to that and other journals during 1885–87. Although Richard Ellmann has claimed that Wilde enjoyed reviewing,{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|p=248}} Wilde's wife would tell friends that "Mr Wilde hates journalism".<ref>{{cite news |last=Peters |first=William Theodore |date=16 December 1894 |title=Oscar Wilde at Home |work=The Sunday Inter Ocean |location=Chicago |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-inter-ocean-oscar-wilde-at-home/170424019/ |access-date=26 October 2023}}</ref> Like his parents before him, Wilde supported Ireland's cause, and when [[Charles Stewart Parnell]] was [[Parnell Commission|falsely accused of inciting murder]], he wrote a series of astute columns defending the politician in the ''[[Daily Chronicle (United Kingdom)|Daily Chronicle]]''.{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|p=273}}

His flair, having previously been put mainly into socialising, suited journalism and rapidly attracted notice. With his youth nearly over and a family to support, in mid-1887 Wilde became the editor of ''The Lady's World'' magazine, his name prominent on the cover.{{sfn|Mason|1972|p=219}} He promptly renamed it as ''[[The Woman's World]]'' and raised its tone, adding serious articles on parenting, culture, and politics, while keeping discussions of fashion and arts. Two pieces of fiction were usually included, one to be read to children, the other for adult readers. Wilde worked hard to solicit good contributions from his wide artistic acquaintance, including those of Lady Wilde and his wife, Constance, while his own "Literary and Other Notes" were themselves popular and amusing.{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|p=276}}

The initial vigour and excitement which he brought to the job began to fade as administration, commuting and office life became tedious.{{sfn|Clayworth|1997|p=91}} At the same time as Wilde's interest flagged, the publishers became concerned about circulation: sales, at the relatively high price of one shilling, remained low.{{sfn|Clayworth|1997|p=95}} Increasingly sending instructions to the magazine by letter, Wilde began a new period of creative work and his own column appeared less regularly.{{sfn|Mason|1972|p=202}}{{sfn|Holland|Hart-Davis|2000|p=404}} In October 1889, Wilde had finally found his voice in prose and, at the end of the second volume, Wilde left ''The Woman's World''.{{sfn|Holland|Hart-Davis|2000|p=413}} The magazine outlasted him by only a year.{{sfn|Seeney|2023|p=130}}
Wilde's period at the helm of the magazine played a pivotal role in his development as a writer and facilitated his ascent to fame. Whilst Wilde the journalist supplied articles under the guidance of his editors, Wilde the editor was forced to learn to manipulate the literary marketplace on his own terms.{{sfn|Clayworth|1997|pp=85, 86}}

During the 1880s, Wilde was a close friend of the artist [[James Abbott McNeill Whistler|James McNeill Whistler]] and they dined together on many occasions. At one of these dinners, Whistler produced a ''bon mot'' that Wilde found particularly witty, Wilde exclaimed that he wished that he had said it. Whistler retorted "You will, Oscar, you will."{{sfn|Raby|1997|p=6}} [[Herbert Vivian]]{{snd}}a mutual friend of Wilde and Whistler{{snd}}attended the dinner and recorded it in his article ''The Reminiscences of a Short Life'', which appeared in [[The Sun (1893–1906)|''The Sun'']] in 1889. The article alleged that Wilde had a habit of passing off other people's witticisms as his own{{snd}}especially Whistler's. Wilde considered Vivian's article to be a scurrilous betrayal, and it directly caused the broken friendship between Wilde and Whistler.{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|p={{page needed|date=May 2021}}}} ''The Reminiscences'' also caused great acrimony between Wilde and Vivian, Wilde accusing Vivian of "the inaccuracy of an eavesdropper with the method of a blackmailer"{{sfn|Spoo|2018|p=31}} and banishing Vivian from his circle.{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|p={{page needed|date=May 2021}}}} Vivian's allegations did not diminish Wilde's reputation as an epigrammatist. London theatre director Luther Munday recounted some of Wilde's typical quips: Wilde said of Whistler that "he had no enemies but was intensely disliked by his friends", of [[Hall Caine]] that "he wrote at the top of his voice", of [[Rudyard Kipling]] that "he revealed life by splendid flashes of vulgarity", of [[Henry James]] that "he wrote fiction as if it were a painful duty", and of [[Francis Marion Crawford|Marion Crawford]] that "he immolated himself on the altar of local colour".<ref name=Munday>{{Cite web|url=https://archive.org/stream/cu31924029872060/cu31924029872060_djvu.txt|title=A chronicle of friendships|first=Luther|last=Munday|date=24 November 1907|publisher=New York : F. A. Stokes|via=Internet Archive}}</ref>

=== Shorter fiction ===
[[File:Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) 1889, May 23. Picture by W. and D. Downey.jpg|thumb|upright|alt=A photograph of Oscar Wilde, dated to 23 May 1889.|Wilde by [[W. & D. Downey]] of Ebury Street, London, 1889]]
Wilde had been regularly writing fairy stories for magazines. He published ''[[The Happy Prince and Other Tales]]'' in 1888. In 1891 he published two more collections, ''[[Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories]]'', and in September ''[[A House of Pomegranates]]'' was dedicated "To Constance Mary Wilde".{{sfn|Mason|1972|pp=360–362}} "[[The Portrait of Mr. W. H.]]", which Wilde had begun in 1887, was first published in ''[[Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine]]'' in July 1889.{{sfn|Mason|1972|p=6}} It is a short story which reports a conversation in which the theory that [[Shakespeare's sonnets]] were written out of the poet's love of the boy actor "[[Willie Hughes]]", is advanced, retracted, and then propounded again. The only evidence for this is two supposed puns within the sonnets themselves.<ref>{{cite news |last=Lezard |first=Nicholas |author-link=Nicholas Lezard |date=29 March 2003 |title=Oscar Wilde's other portrait |work=[[The Guardian]] |location=London |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/mar/29/classics.oscarwilde |access-date=14 April 2010 |archive-date=29 June 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130629202020/http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2003/mar/29/classics.oscarwilde |url-status=live}}</ref>

The anonymous narrator is at first sceptical, then believing, and finally flirtatious with the reader: he concludes that "there is really a great deal to be said of the Willie Hughes theory of Shakespeare's sonnets."{{sfn|Raby|1997|p=109}} By the end fact and fiction have melded together.{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|p=280}} [[Arthur Ransome]] wrote that Wilde "read something of himself into Shakespeare's sonnets" and became fascinated with the "Willie Hughes theory" despite the lack of biographical evidence for the historical William Hughes' existence.{{sfn|Ransome|1912|p=101}} Instead of writing a short but serious essay on the question, Wilde tossed the theory to the three characters of the story, allowing it to unfold as background to the plot {{snd}} an early masterpiece of Wilde's combining many elements that interested him: conversation, literature and the idea that to shed oneself of an idea one must first convince another of its truth.{{sfn|Ransome|1912|p=102}} Ransome concludes that Wilde succeeds precisely because the literary criticism is unveiled with such a deft touch.

Though containing nothing but "special pleading" – it would not, he says "be possible to build an airier castle in Spain than this of the imaginary William Hughes" – we continue listening nonetheless to be charmed by the telling.{{sfn|Ransome|1912|p={{page needed|date=May 2021}}}} "You must believe in Willie Hughes," Wilde told an acquaintance, "I almost do, myself."{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|p=280}}

=== Essays and dialogues {{anchor|Wilde's fictions}} ===
{{Main|The Soul of Man under Socialism|The Decay of Lying|The Critic as Artist}}
[[File:Oscar Wilde (Boston Public Library).jpg|thumb|upright|Sheet music cover, 1880s]]
Wilde, having tired of journalism, had been busy setting out his aesthetic ideas more fully in a series of longer prose pieces which were published in the major literary-intellectual journals of the day. In January 1889, ''The Decay of Lying: A Dialogue'' appeared in ''[[The Nineteenth Century]]'', and ''Pen, Pencil and Poison'', a satirical biography of [[Thomas Griffiths Wainewright]], in ''[[The Fortnightly Review]]'', edited by Wilde's friend [[Frank Harris]].{{sfn|Mason|1972|p=71}} Two of Wilde's four writings on aesthetics are dialogues: though Wilde had evolved professionally from lecturer to writer, he retained an oral tradition of sorts. Having always excelled as a wit and raconteur, he often composed by assembling phrases, ''bons mots'' and witticisms into a longer, cohesive work.{{sfn|Raby|1997|p=98}}

Wilde was concerned about the effect of moralising on art; he believed in art's redemptive, developmental powers: "Art is individualism, and individualism is a disturbing and disintegrating force. There lies its immense value. For what it seeks is to disturb monotony of type, slavery of custom, tyranny of habit, and the reduction of man to the level of a machine."<ref name="soulofman">Wilde, O. ''The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde'', Collins.</ref> In his only political text, ''The Soul of Man Under Socialism'', he argued political conditions should establish this primacy – private property should be abolished, and cooperation should be substituted for competition. He wrote "Socialism, Communism, or whatever one chooses to call it, by converting private property into public wealth, and substituting co-operation for competition, will restore society to its proper condition of a thoroughly healthy organism, and insure the material well-being of each member of the community. It will, in fact, give Life its proper basis and its proper environment". At the same time, he stressed that the government most amenable to artists was no government at all. Wilde envisioned a society where mechanisation has freed human effort from the burden of necessity, effort which can instead be expended on artistic creation. [[George Orwell]] summarised, "In effect, the world will be populated by artists, each striving after perfection in the way that seems best to him."<ref>Orwell, George [https://web.archive.org/web/20160120071748/http://www.geocities.jp/mickindex/orwell/orwell_ROW_en.html Review: The Soul of Man under Socialism by Oscar Wilde] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170329102905/http://www.geocities.jp/mickindex/orwell/orwell_ROW_en.html |date=29 March 2017}} ''[[The Observer]]'', 8 May 1948. Retrieved 28 September 2010.</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde Volume IV: Criticism: Historical Criticism, Intentions, The Soul of Man |date=2000 |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=233}}</ref>

This point of view did not align him with [[Fabian Society|the Fabians]], intellectual socialists who advocated using state apparatus to change social conditions, nor did it endear him to the monied classes whom he had previously entertained.{{sfn|Kiberd|1996|loc=Ch. 2}}<ref name="Pearsonxi">Pearson, H. ''Essays of Oscar Wilde'' London: Meuthen & Co (1950: xi) Catalogue no: 5328/u</ref> [[Hesketh Pearson]], introducing a collection of Wilde's essays in 1950, remarked how ''The Soul of Man Under Socialism'' had been an inspirational text for revolutionaries in Tsarist Russia but laments that [[Russia#Soviet Russia|in the Stalinist era]] "it is doubtful whether there are any uninspected places in which it could now be hidden".<ref name="Pearsonxi" />

{{quote box
| width = 27%
| align = right
| quote = Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
| source = —From "[[The Critic as Artist]]" published in ''Intentions'' (1891)<ref>{{cite book |title=Masks in Modern Drama |date=1984 |publisher=University of California Press |page=157}}</ref>
}}
Wilde considered including this pamphlet and "[[The Portrait of Mr. W. H.]]", his essay-story on Shakespeare's sonnets, in a new anthology in 1891, but eventually decided to limit it to purely aesthetic subjects. ''Intentions'' packaged revisions of four essays: ''The Decay of Lying''; ''Pen, Pencil and Poison''; ''The Truth of Masks'' (first published 1885); and ''The Critic as Artist'' in two parts.{{sfn|Mason|1972|pp=355–357}} For Pearson the biographer, the essays and dialogues exhibit every aspect of Wilde's genius and character: wit, romancer, talker, lecturer, humanist and scholar and concludes that "no other productions of his have as varied an appeal".<ref>Pearson, H. ''Essays of Oscar Wilde'' London: Meuthen & Co (1950: x) Catalogue no: 5328/u</ref> 1891 turned out to be Wilde's ''[[annus mirabilis]]''; apart from his three collections he also produced his only novel.<ref>{{cite book |title=Wilde Writings: Contextual Conditions |date=2003 |publisher=University of Toronto Press |page=86}}</ref>

=== ''The Picture of Dorian Gray'' ===
{{main|The Picture of Dorian Gray|l1=''The Picture of Dorian Gray''}}
[[File:Oscar Wilde and Arthur Conan Doyle green plaque (Westminster).jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|Plaque commemorating the dinner between Wilde, [[Arthur Conan Doyle]] and the publisher of ''Lippincott's Monthly Magazine'' on 30 August 1889 at the [[Langham Hotel, London]], that led to Wilde writing ''The Picture of Dorian Gray'']]
The first version of ''The Picture of Dorian Gray'' was published as the lead story in the July 1890 edition of ''[[Lippincott's Monthly Magazine]]'', along with five others.{{sfn|Mason|1972|p=105}} The story begins with a man painting a picture of Gray. When Gray, who has a "face like ivory and rose leaves", sees his finished portrait, he breaks down. Distraught that his beauty will fade while the portrait stays beautiful, he inadvertently makes a [[Deal with the Devil|Faustian bargain]] in which only the painted image grows old while he stays beautiful and young. For Wilde, the purpose of art would be to guide life as if beauty alone were its object. As Gray's portrait allows him to escape the corporeal ravages of his hedonism, Wilde sought to juxtapose the beauty he saw in art with daily life.<ref name="Mendelsohn" />

[[File:Oscar, Constance and Cyril Wilde 1892.jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|left|Oscar, Cyril and Constance Wilde during their summer holiday in [[Felbrigg]], southwest of [[Cromer]], Norfolk in 1892]]
Reviewers immediately criticised the novel's decadence and homosexual allusions; the ''[[Daily Chronicle (United Kingdom)|Daily Chronicle]]'' for example, called it "unclean", "poisonous", and "heavy with the mephitic odours of moral and spiritual putrefaction".<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Ross |first=Alex |author-link=Alex Ross (music critic) |date=1 August 2011 |title=Deceptive Picture: How Oscar Wilde painted over "Dorian Gray" |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/08/08/deceptive-picture |access-date=3 August 2011 |magazine=[[The New Yorker]] |archive-date=6 October 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141006051046/http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/08/08/deceptive-picture |url-status=live}}</ref> Wilde vigorously responded, writing to the editor of the ''Scots Observer'', in which he clarified his stance on ethics and aesthetics in art – "If a work of art is rich and vital and complete, those who have artistic instincts will see its beauty and those to whom ethics appeal more strongly will see its moral lesson."{{sfn|Holland|Hart-Davis|2000|pp=433, 435, 438, 441, 446}} He nevertheless revised it extensively for book publication in 1891: six new chapters were added, some overtly decadent passages and homo-eroticism excised, and a preface was included consisting of twenty-two epigrams, such as "Books are well written, or badly written. That is all."<ref>{{cite book |title=The Picture of Dorian Gray |date=1994 |publisher=From Project Gutenberg transcription |chapter=Preface |chapter-url=http://www.gutenberg.org/files/174/174-h/174-h.htm |access-date=30 August 2010 |archive-date=6 November 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191106080616/http://www.gutenberg.org/files/174/174-h/174-h.htm |url-status=live}}</ref>{{sfn|Mason|1972|p=341}}

Contemporary reviewers and modern critics have postulated numerous possible sources of the story, a search Jershua McCormack argues is futile because Wilde "has tapped a root of Western folklore so deep and ubiquitous that the story has escaped its origins and returned to the oral tradition".{{sfn|Raby|1997|p=111}} Wilde claimed the plot was "an idea that is as old as the history of literature but to which I have given a new form".{{sfn|Holland|Hart-Davis|2000|p=435}} Modern critic Robin McKie considered the novel to be technically mediocre, saying that the conceit of the plot had guaranteed its fame, but the device is never pushed to its full.<ref>McKie, Robin (25 January 2009). [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jan/25/classics-picture-dorian-gray-wilde "Classics Corner: The Picture of Dorian Gray"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130624195141/http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jan/25/classics-picture-dorian-gray-wilde |date=24 June 2013}}. ''The Guardian''.</ref> On the other hand, [[Robert McCrum]] of ''[[The Guardian]]'' lists it among the 100 best novels ever written in English, calling it "an arresting, and slightly camp, exercise in late-Victorian [[Gothic fiction|gothic]]".<ref name="guardian">{{cite news |last=McCrum |first=Robert |title=The 100 best novels: No 27 – The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (1891) |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/mar/24/100-best-novels-picture-dorian-gray-oscar-wilde |url-status=live |work=The Guardian |date=24 March 2014 |access-date=11 August 2018 |archive-date=12 August 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180812053713/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/mar/24/100-best-novels-picture-dorian-gray-oscar-wilde}}</ref> The novel has been the subject of many adaptations to film and stage, and one of its most quoted lines, "there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about", features in [[Monty Python]]'s "Oscar Wilde sketch" in an episode of ''[[Monty Python's Flying Circus]]''.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Complete Monty Python's Flying Circus: All the Words, Vol. 2 |date=1989 |publisher=Pantheon Books |page=230}}</ref>