Making Oscar Wilde

Edinburgh Critical Studies in Transatlantic Literatures

by Michèle Mendelssohn

*PEN America Biography Prize SEMI-FINALIST
*Biographers' Club Slightly Foxed First Biography Prize FINALIST
*ONE OF THE YEAR’S BEST BOOKS
"Fascinating" – The New Yorker
"Prodigious" – The Observer
"Extraordinary" – The Irish Times
"Remarkable" – The Sunday Times
"Provocative" – The Washington Post
"Astonishing" – The Gay & Lesbian Review

Witty, inspiring, and charismatic, Oscar Wilde is one of the Greats of English literature. Today, his plays and stories are beloved around the world. But it was not always so. His afterlife has given him the legitimacy that life denied him. Making Oscar Wilde reveals the untold story of young Oscar's career in Victorian England and post-Civil War America. Set on two continents, it tracks a larger-than-life hero on an unforgettable adventure to make his name and gain international acclaim. "Success is a science," Wilde believed, "if you have the conditions, you get the result."

Combining new evidence and gripping cultural history, Michele Mendelssohn dramatizes Wilde's rise, fall, and resurrection as part of a spectacular transatlantic pageant. With superb style and an instinct for story-telling, she brings to life the charming young Irishman who set out to captivate the United States and Britain with his words and ended up conquering the world.

Following the twists and turns of Wilde's journey, Mendelssohn vividly depicts sensation-hungry Victorian journalism and popular entertainment alongside racial controversies, sex scandals, and the growth of Irish nationalism. This ground-breaking revisionist history shows how Wilde's tumultuous early life embodies the story of the Victorian era as it tottered towards modernity. Riveting and original, Making Oscar Wilde is a masterful account of a life like no other.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, History, Literature, LGBT

368 pages, Hardcover

First published June 20, 2007

Reviews

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The two great turning-points in my life were when my father sent me to Oxford, and when society sent me to prison.” -Oscar Wilde

During his lifetime, Wilde was at once a celebrity and a pariah. His skill as an author and a playwright made him famous, but his flamboyant sense of fashion and his “effeminate mannerisms” made him stand out as both an eccentric and a target.

On a lecture tour in the United States it was Wilde’s indeterminate ethnicity rather than his indeterminate sexuality that caused him the most trouble. Because of the fervent anti-Irish sentiment of the late nineteenth century, Wilde often presented himself as an Englishman rather than an Irishman. When his ruse failed, Wilde was accused of ethnic trespass. An Irishman posing as an Englishman was an interloper of the worst sort. Attendance at his once popular lectures declined and anonymous death threats were made.

Curiously (at least to me) it was England, not America, where Wilde’s sexuality proved to be his undoing. More and more his speaking engagements were infiltrated by hecklers waving bibles and shouting “SODOMITE!” In 1895 Wilde was convicted of “gross indecency” and imprisoned for two years in London where he was compelled to walk a treadmill for up to six hours a day and sleep on a plank. His already fragile health declined rapidly. Wilde was released in 1897 and died a mere three years later at the age of 46.

For serval years following his conviction and imprisonment, Oscar Wilde's name was stigmatized and could not be spoken in polite circles. I kept drawing parallels between Oscar’s life and that of Alan Turing—two brilliant men who were prosecuted under draconian laws and denied the opportunities and the recognition they richly deserved.

Michèle Mendellssohn’s Making Oscar Wilde does what a good biography should do. It tells a life story in context with the era in which that particular person lived and died. I expected Wilde’s life to be filled with controversy and laced with witticisms (which it was!) but I was taken back by the hardship and unjust misfortune of Oscar’s wild ride.

[Clare · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was utterly fascinating. Oscar Wilde said he wanted to achieve renown by success or notoriety. He did both. Nothing if but determined he was truly a self made man. Growing up in Ireland in a family whose roots were in England he was a dichotomy from the start. He graduated from two different colleges majoring in the classics. He felt comfortable in small groups or one on one expounding on the aesthetic movement which believed in art for art's sake. He became well known in England and was invited to America to give talks about his take on this topic. His promoters played upon his stylishness to promote the plays they were showing which mocked the aesthetes. Wilde might have been naïve at first, but learned quickly how to counteract their ploys and remake himself for each engagement. It felt as if he was a chameleon who could mold himself into whatever niche in which he found himself. Whether talking to a refined New England crowd, performing for a rowdy bunch of hard working, hard drinking western workers or speaking in the post Civil War south he fit his dialogue to interest his audience. He used his time in America to hone his craft and came back to England with the biting wit he is known for today.
The author also gives us much useful information on the ideas, social mores, and historical events that were shaping the times in which he wrote.
After some time Oscar's personal life, which ran against the strictures of the times, came to light and therein caused his fame to do an abrupt about face. He died in poverty and disrepute. Though his life ended in tragedy, his works remain to entertain and inform with irony and personal honesty.

[Kitty Moore]

A shining example of the current generation of Wildean biographies, Mendelssohn's book is a revealing look at Wilde's North American tour peeling back the varnish a little bit. Far from dismantling or embarrassing Wilde with her findings, Mendelssohn paints for readers a picture of a young man in over his head, but refusing to give up and to rise to the top by any means necessary. At the same time, Mendelssohn also turns her unique lens on the racial and social politics of the 19th century and examines how young Oscar fit into that narrative. And the book is bracketed by the author's consideration of her own Wildean scholarship in a way which underscores the joy and satisfaction of their work. Absolutely a must read for Wilde fans. I'm possibly putting it second only to "Built of Books" by Thomas Wright in terms of favorite Wilde biographies.

[Denise · Rating 3 out of 5]

How many different biographies of Oscar Wilde am I going to read? Why, all I can get my hands on!
This fairly recent addition to the many works available dissecting Wilde's life, oeuvre and personality focusses mostly on his 1882 lecture tour across America, which I must admit is not one of the most interesting parts of his life IMO. Lots of detailed research obviously went into this book, I just wasn't all that interested in its main focus and there wasn't really anything new or groundbreaking in the rest.

[Michelle Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a scholarly read. The author has much research into the work. Loved the pictorial plates. I think the title is perfect for this is the telling of the making of Oscar Wilde.

Be prepared for interest in many other authors, historical figures and the era of mid - to late 19th century. My own adventures in research has taken me to the life stories of the wife and sons; rereading Whitman's Leaves of Grass; Pound's London Egoist and even Winesburg, Ohio by Anderson. I am on the hunt for Spoon River Anthology by Masters and am now following Kathryn Schulz on Twitter, particularly her article on Pond Scum in the New Yorker and the hell it raised. Coincidentally, I agree with her.........................See you on Twitter.

5 stars: She had me at the map!

[Jenifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heavily researched. Very informative. Fresh look at the formative experiences of Oscar Wilde, specifically the effect of his 1882 American tour on his personality and work.

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mendelssohn has deeply researched the man and the myth, focusing on Wilde’s speaking tour of the US in 1882. Waiting for my library copy of Dorian Gray, I spotted this book. It was more than I needed. Better for superfans. Mendelssohn compares Wilde and his work to minstrelsy and to African Americans. Never would have thought of that.

Aestheticism
Art for art’s sake without regard for morals, teaching, learning or communicating, can unsettle me. It makes me think of postmodernism where nothing has meaning. Or “Piss Christ.” Or Michael Jackson. Harvey Weinstein makes me ill but I loved some of the movies he produced. It is a conundrum for me. Can I enjoy art made by the immoral? I have and will. But I always change the station when adult Michael Jackson comes on the radio. I cannot pay to watch Tom Cruise. Hell, I can't even watch Tom Cruise for free! Already too-wealthy Gwyneth Paltrow hawking her pseudoscientific, wildly overpriced products is nearly criminal. I can't demean the Kardashians here because they are in no way artists or creators. “For marketers and consumers alike, Aestheticism had become shorthand for brighter futures.” To beautify and enrich you.
“Wilde encourage quasi magical-thinking about everyday realities, however modest. That’s precisely the kind of thinking that, in The Picture of Dorian Gray, makes the third-rate actress Sybil Vane seem divine to Dorian.”
“”By spangling the facts with fancy,” Wilde could turn the mundane into symbols.

American Lecture Trip
“He [Wilde] had arrived in the land of accelerated intimacies and instantaneous familiarity.”

Wilde’s Popularity
Interviewing was a new form of journalism. Wilde became “one of the era’s most interviewed people. Interviewing would turn journalism into a gossipy, tell-all medium. The keynote of New Journalism was its more intimate tone. For Wilde, it would do two things: make his name familiar to millions, and make them feel like he was speaking directly to them. This added to what photography and technologies of mass reproduction were already doing to make him visible to millions….. It would enable readers to ‘hear’ his voice on the page as they read their newspapers over breakfast. And that, in turn, would make him a phenomenon, a celebrity author whose book of poems was sought after and widely discussed.”
From 1882-3, “Wilde was interviewed at least 98 times…. Its effect on him was profound, but it was his writing that benefitted the most. Constant interviewing drastically improved his ability to write good dialogue…. While on tour, Wilde regularly read newspaper accounts of his lectures and interviews. This enabled him to ‘hear’ the sound of his voice in print and to compare what he had said to how his conversation sounded on the page. The effect of this regular, repeated exercise trained his ear for witty dialogue. The unstinting attention he lavished on his interviews paid off. With each successive interview, his diction grew more precise, his soundbites sharper. Later, the characters in his society comedies would talk like him.”

The Persona
Wilde appeared an English establishment gentleman but was Irish and often sympathized with the nationalists. The ladies swooned over him but he turned out to be gay. He was highbrow classicist who was successfully ridiculed in lowbrow acts. His race (many thought the Irish were of an inferior race to the English) was questioned and he was compared to African Americans. His handlers encouraged controversy around Wilde for it increased interest in him and their bottom line. Wilde did not appreciate the scorn and negative coverage.
“Wilde remade his personal history… by rewriting it himself.”
“He was becoming a version of himself more reliably surprising and spectacular than any of his imitators—even those in blackface and drag. Wilde had created something original. Cool, detached, uncompromising, and tough-minded—the ironic dandy would become synonymous with his name forever.”
“Dandyism, he [Wilde] claimed was a trait native to Irish poets.”
“Wilde’s [eventual] success was post-truth. By then such distortion had been the norm. Feelings fed rumors. Mistakes fattened into lies. An eager public snapped up these morsels of ‘information’ so fast they were rarely questioned. And this, in turn, plumped up his reputation.”
Wilde discovered that “we are all of us made of the same stuff” “The laws of etiquette governing polite society were, in fact, a mask. Tact was merely an elaborate art of impression management.”

[Eri · Rating 3 out of 5]

informative and interesting, although the discussion of race was really poorly done for the most part and detracted from the overall experience of reading this.

[Michael K Dane · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ms. Mendelssohn’s academic account of Oscar Wilde’s exceptional life is interesting only in the gaps that it attempts to fill in. However, her obsession with dragging Oscar’s myth down to earth is blatant and borders on defamation of character.

It is indeed interesting that the Wildes had a distant slave owning relation in the South of the USA, a large land owner with hundreds of slaves, an influential figure who ended badly after the war. Yet, she tries again and again to equate Oscar with ideas of white supremacy.

It was after all 1882 and when he was being hounded across the United States for his association with a black valet and derided in virtually every major newspaper in vile cartoons in esthete dress and black face, she finds this distant association a blot on his character.

This dogmatic academian tries to use every intimate letter and quote against the great wit. She only begrudgingly attributes some of his actions as witty defense against a well orchestrated attempt to exploit Oscar’s threatening and very different self image to the hostile audience he faced. She almost never sees his actions as courageous.

There has always been pernicious and malevolent strain of racism and slander directed at those who are or dare to be different.

Even Oscar, our greatest wit, Oscar Wilde, was hounded daily by nearly every major publication on both sides of the Atlantic before and after his lecture tour of The United States in the 1880’s. Depicted here as “The Wilde Man of Borneo!”

Major newspapers and magazines like the Washington Post and Punch captioned him as a P T Barnum attraction “WHAT IS IT!?!”

Phrenologists and pseudo scientific ethnic purists, in a wave of anti-Irish and Anti-Black fervor at the turn of the last century, along with blatant allusions to suspicious perverted feminine traits, ran daily cartoons, letters and editorials denouncing the Esthetic Movement and its main spokesman Oscar.

In theses photos he is likened to “the missing link,” “a genetic flaw” in the evolution of mankind. Often pictured in Blackface worshipping a sunflower, the symbol of the movement...and an ignorant public ate it up.

Oscar, it seems, barely survived and these astoundingly ignorant attacks have followed his fame all throughout the last century, to the present day!

It’s difficult to wrap my mind around the truth that these ideas persist and yet those of us who live outside of the norm know the truth, by the blood we spill in the revelations of our lives and the deafening silence that meets our every attempt at visibility.

Ms. Mendelssohn’s tale is not without merit though, if you read it to simply glean colorful facts about the great man’s youth and how he overcame all odds to create his own myth.

I am a gay writer in the 21st. century and I have tried to live an open and visible life, and paid the price for it and so I can only imagine the challenges of the 19th century.

The author also goes out of her way to omit every reference to Oscar’s witticisms. She rarely quotes him and defers to paraphrasing which to someone like me is akin to blasphemy.

Though she spends an entire chapter to the identification of a black valet of his, through rigorous academic searches and correspondence, she devotes only half of a chapter to Oscar’s trials, (there were three) which she consolidates into one, his prison term and his extraordinary after life in exile. Bosie, Alfred Lord Douglas, the most prominent figure in his life, merits barely a footnote in her volume.

She hints at Oscar’s early days of poet and essayist, that he was unexceptional and yet, in the same breath, says that he was intimate friends of Lillie Langtry, Sarah Bernhardt, the celebrated painter Whistler and almost every celebrity of the day. Oscar advised them and helped them to become the celebrities they were, by the power of his own association and influence. For a young man in his 20’s just out of Oxford this in itself is proof of his genius and yet Ms. Mendelssohn calls this the actions of a social climber.

Enough, there is much to revile in this clinical account of genius and yet there, between the harshness of her judgment, a wealth of information about young Oscar. His intimate meeting, in Philadelphia, with Walt Whitman, the tour of America is eye opening and terrifying and the fact that he passes through these tests by fire, again and again, unscathed is remarkable. The fact that he uses the poets prerogative and reframed is past in poem and prose, sweeping away the ugly and glorifying the divine is not something be scoffed at, but applauded and given the credit it is due ...another triumph of the divine Oscar.

In conclusion, whether you aim is to drag a great poet, dramatist and writer down to earth or to read of his very human trials, faults and exaltations, you will find much of interest here.

Michael Dane
HomoAmerican - The Secret Society

[Michael Reilly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an amazingly well-done story of Osar Wilde's 1882-1883 lecture tour in America. Mendelssohn gives an overview of his first 28 years. He was borne in Ireland. He went to Oxford. He was a campus character, known for his flamboyant dress and manner. He wrote some poetry and criticism. He was considered one of the leaders of the Aesthetic movement. After College he published a book of poetry.

He agreed to do a lecture tour of America for the money and as a way to get attention. He landed in New York and toured throughout America including the West Coast and the South.

There is a fascinating story in the middle of his American tour. It was a matter of much note that Wilde was Irish. In 1882 may Americans considered the Irish to be one step ahead of apes. The most common carton depiction of the Irish was as evil looking apes. And, one step more, many considered the Irish to be at the same level as blacks. As Mendelssohn shows, there was "a perception of Wilde as a negrified Paddy".

The controversy escalated to a crazy level. Black Minstrel shows began to add Wilde imitators. There were racist cartoons of "Wilde of Borneo". "Only Leon" was a man who dressed as a woman and performed as "Oscar Wilde's sister". He was a big hit.

The odd thing is that Wilde was not sympathetic to the plight of blacks in America. His Uncle John immigrated to Louisiana and became a wealthy slaveholder. Wilde was happy to visit with him. He made a point of visiting Jeff Davis who he had an "intense admiration for." (There was a widely reported story that Wilde's train to New Orleans stopped so the passengers, including Wilde, could witness a lynching. Mendelssohn shows that the story was a hoax.)

Wilde was followed by controversy. In Boston a group of Harvard students dressed up in Wilde costumes. In Leadville, Colorado, he dealt with death threats from cowboys, who didn't like his type. In most cities high society was excited to see him. The press saw him a good copy. He was a good interview.

All of his adventures in America were reported in detail in England. He was a full-blown celebrity. His plan had worked.

Mendelssohn has a brisk recap of the rest of Wilde's life. He wrote the plays which are his main claim to literary fame. He had the horrific legal battle arising from his relationship with Lord Douglas. He did hard jail time and exiled himself to France. He died of meningitis at the age 46.

Mendelssohn is a lively writer. She is fascinated by all of the peculiar parts of the story, but she is very good at explaining the context and putting each piece into perspective.

This is also a valuable reminder of the persistence of racist story telling. The slurs and tropes applied to the Irish in America in the 1880s are identical to the ones used today for Hispanic and Muslim Americans.

[Rocío G. · Rating 5 out of 5]

For some reason I thought I knew a lot about Oscar Wilde. Michéle Mendelssohn's wondrous biography proved me wrong in the best of ways. The book centres specifically on the year Wilde spent lecturing in the United States and the many ways in which this period of his life laid the groundwork for his later success as a writer, aesthete, and personality. What's particularly interesting about Mendelssohn's work is the fascinating look it offers at the inner workings of Victorian celebrity culture. Wilde, she suggests, made himself into a celebrity before he had any work to back him up (the enduring legacy of his writing is proof enough that he did produce it later on) through a series of interviews and stunts throughout the many stops of his North American lecturing tour. His public persona became a steadfast feature of his literary work in a way that, as we all know, eventually guaranteed his downfall. I was enthralled by Mendelssohn's careful tracing of the imbrication between different kinds of bigotry (anti-irishness, anti-blackness, machismo) present in the American media's response to Wilde. It truly drove home the many ways in which the Victorian era holds a mirror to our own.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars.
This was a great read. It is filled with interesting facts and rich contextual detail. The author provides a skilful analysis of how Wilde changed and developed over the short years of his life and in response to the people and societies he lived in. From a starting point of only knowing that he wanted 'success, fame or even notoriety' to the point where he was regarded as an important author to the tragic notoriety he gained through his trial and imprisonment Mendelsshon lays out a clear map of Wilde's life. Her analysis feels right as it is so firmly rooted in fact and supported with historical evidence. A huge amount of research must have been completed to underpin this work. The only thing I found I wanted was some more information about Constance and his Wilde's two sons...how Constance died and what became of the two boys. It would have been interesting to have the author's insight in this area. All in all a great book that any Wilde fans should enjoy.

[Kyra Boisseree · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'll admit I was dubious about this book at first, but I ended up being blown away by the depth of Mendelssohn's research. This book is incredibly detailed and nuanced, and I really enjoyed it. It deals in one of my favorite Wildean topics, the creation of the mythology of Oscar Wilde, with a focus on his lecture tour of the US. The lecture tour is often overlooked, but I ended up really taking to Mendelssohn's argument about how it influenced Wilde's career and public persona. I only wish she'd spent more time on the rest of his life! But I know that wasn't really the point of this book. It's definitely not a beginner biography of Wilde, but it could be a great second biography for those interested.

[Jacky Chan · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent literary biography: another one of those books you didn't know you needed to read. Michele Mendelssohn does a lot of great things in this book, and uncovering the importance of Wilde's 1882 American tour to his work is the least of them. She really shines in her exploration of how ethnicity, sexuality, and nationality and their intersections move to make the Wilde we see, while her deft and stylish prose sings and charms. In writing Wilde Mendelssohn recovers a figure and fin de siecle society as they really were: dynamic, conflicted, and polyphonic. Her revisionist biography and history is simply stunning. I would highly recommend.

[Angel Lemke · Rating 5 out of 5]

With its emphasis on the impact of Wilde’s American tour and placing Wilde in the context of not only Irish ethnicity but white US understandings of blackness, and minstrel performance on both sides of the pond, it is an extremely illuminating work & draws on and incredibly rich and previously unassembled archive. Fascinating from beginning to end.

[Milo Roth · Rating 5 out of 5]

AUDIOBOOK

I learned a tiny bit about Wilde in my 12th grade English class, and was glad to learn so much more. Especially interesting is how he built up his persona and became the person we remember him as

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mr Vogue
AHEADy that's my cult culture currency
Hollywood future casting for the ratings
Thought bubbles churning ov'r the Atlantic

[Kay · Rating 3 out of 5]

While extremely interesting, most of the claims in this book either seemed to go nowhere or were dangerously unfounded

[Julian M · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic biography.