The literary work of Oscar Wilde (Dublin, 1854 – Paris, 1900) is in good health. Texts like The Portrait of Dorian Grey or the wonderful stories for readers of all ages (The Canterville Ghost, The Nightingale and the Rose…) are still being edited. And who doesn’t enjoy his theatrical work, so perfect from the point of view of stage rules (Lady Windermere’s fan, The ideal husband, The importance of being called Ernesto, etc.). Without forgetting two memorable texts written in the hardest moments of his life: The Ballad of Reading Gaol and Deep (the striking epistle sent to Alfred Douglas, in 1897, from prison).
Merlin Holland, grandson of the writer and specialist in his grandfather’s work, is the editor of Oscar Wilde, a life in letters (Alba Editorial. Barcelona, 2024, 631 pages), book published in 2003, which Alberto Mira translated into Spanish. In the life of the Irish writer, there are controversial situations discussed by biographers, because he himself tried to maintain those ambiguities. He neither left us any memoirs nor many autobiographical references in his writings, therefore, the letters that, without literary pretensions, he wrote to relatives, friends, etc., are documents that allow us to know the writer better.
The first reliable edition of Wilde’s correspondence, from 1962, was completed in 1985 and, in 2000, on the occasion of the centenary of his death, it was expanded to 1,562 letters, accompanied by numerous explanatory notes. Instead, the objective of this edition is to bring the Irish author’s correspondence closer to a non-scholarly audience, for which Merlin Holland has selected 400 letters, accompanied by brief comments. Texts that attest that Oscar Wilde was a great worker, concerned about the problems of the society of his time, and that the philosophical and literary training that he had acquired was notable. Since he did not usually date the correspondence, the editor has tried to deduce the information with the help of other documents.
The selected letters have been grouped into nine sections: Student, Fascinating London, Discovering America, The Conformist Rebel, Against the Grain, The Prisoner, A Certain Form of Freedom, Second Round and Final Years. Even in the most dramatic moments, there is never a lack of touches of humor. In the epilogue, the letter from his friend Robert (Bobie) Ross to Adela Schuster – a London lady who helped Wilde out of prison and took an interest in him – is added, about the last months of the writer’s life and about the causes of death in French exile. The book closes with the Index of recipients and the Name Index.
