Oscar Wilde: A Life in Quotes

by Barry Day

Oscar Wilde—to many the greatest wit in the English language—died in impoverished exile in Paris a century ago. He died unsure whether his genius—the one thing that really mattered to him—would survive his disgrace. Yet today, Oscar Wilde is more famous and admired than he was in his own lifetime. In many ways, he remains an astonishingly modern figure. Now, Barry Day gives us this affectionate portrait of Oscar Wilde told largely in Wilde's own scintillating words. He has drawn not only from the writer's published work and reminiscences, but also from a thousand surviving letters. As Day writes: "In A Life in Quotes you will find the public Wilde polishing the verbal jewels that brought him fame, but you will also hear the private Wilde struggling with words to make sense of a less than perfect world. The man who emerges is no less impressive as a literary figure but entirely more likeable as a human being than one had expected."

224 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2000

About the author

Barry Day was born in England and received his MA from Balliol College, Oxford. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA), a Trustee of the Noël Coward Foundation and was awarded the Order of the British Empire “for services to British culture in the U.S.A.” He lives in New York, London, and Palm Beach.