The Picture of Dorian Gray (5 page)
Read The Picture of Dorian Gray Online
Authors: Oscar Wilde
21
Henry Maudsley, the major British exponent of what was called âdegeneration' theory, published
Responsibility in Mental Disease
in 1874. Maudsley was a materialist who argued that criminals were largely a product of their hereditary makeup, or were (evolutionary) throwbacks to more primitive forms of humanity. These ideas, deriving from French âalienists' of the mid-nineteenth century, came into prominence in its last decades. Maudsley published articles on âHeredity in Health and Disease' in the
Fortnightly Review
(1886), the same journal in which a number of Wilde's own essays appeared. Wilde himself was diagnosed as a formofâdegenerate' when he appeared in Max Nordau's great pantheon of the pathological,
Degeneration
(1892), which appeared in English in 1895 and helped provide a diagnostic sub-text to journalistic comment on Wilde's case at the Old Bailey, despite the fact that Nordau had not even hinted at Wilde's sexuality, at least not in the first edition.
22
âThe Critic as Artist',
Complete Works
(1994), 1137.
23
And even this aspect is subjected to scientific scrutiny by Dorian. As he reasons: âHad it indeed been prayer that had produced the substitution? Might there not be some curious scientific reason for it all? If thought could exercise its influence upon a living organism, might not thought exercise an influence upon dead and inorganic things?' (Chapter VIII).
24
The first quote is from Acton,
The Functions and Disorders of the Reproductive
Organs
(1865), 67; the second from Spitzka, âCases of Masturbation (Mastur-batic Insanity)' (1888), 34, 52; the third from Tiss ot,
A Treatise on the Diseases Produced by Onanism
(1760; 1832), 51, 86. On this literature, its âGothic' elements and its possible contribution to
Dorian Gray
, see Mighall (1999), Chapter 5.
25
Complete Works
(1994), 1082, 1091.
26
ibid., 1106.
| 1854 | Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wilde born (he added âWills' in the 1870s) on 16 October at 21 Westland Row, Dublin. |
| 1855 | His family move to 1 Merrion Square in Dublin. |
| 1857 | Birth of Isola Wilde, Oscar's sister. |
| 1858 | Birth of Constance Mary Lloyd, Wilde's future wife. |
| 1864 | Wilde's father is knighted following his appointment as Queen Victoria's âSurgeon Oculist' the previous year. Wilde attends Portora Royal School, Enniskillen. |
| 1867 | Death of Isola Wilde. 1871â 4 At Trinity College, Dublin, reading Classics and Ancient History. |
| 1874â8 | At Magdalen College, Oxford, reading Classics and Ancient History (âGreats'). |
| 1875 | Travels in Italy with his tutor from Dublin, J. P. Mahaffy. |
| 1876 | First poems published in Dublin University Magazine. Death of Sir William Wilde. |
| 1877 | Further travels in Italy, and in Greece. |
| 1878 | Wins the Newdigate Prize for Poetry in Oxford with âRavenna'. Takes a double first from Oxford. Moves to London and starts to establish himself as a popularizer of Aestheticism. |
| 1879 | Meets Constance Lloyd. |
| 1881 | Poems published at his own expense; not well received critically. |
| 1882 | Lecture tour of North America, speaking on art, aesthetics and decoration. Revised edition of Poems published. |
| 1883 | His first play, Vera; or, The Nihilists performed in New York; it is not a success. |
| 1884 | Marries Constance Lloyd in London, honeymoon in Paris and Dieppe. |
| 1885 | Moves into 16 Tite Street, Chelsea. Cyril Wilde born. |
| 1886 | Vyvyan Wilde born. Meets Robert Ross, to become his lifelong friend and, in 1897, his literary executor. Ross might have been Wilde's first homosexual lover. |
| 1887 | Becomes the editor of Lady's World: A Magazine of Fashion and Society, and changes its name to Woman's World. Publication ofâThe Canterville Ghost' and âLord Arthur Savile's Crime'. |
| 1888 | The Happy Prince and Other Tales published; on the whole well-received. |
| 1889 | âPen, Pencil and Poison' (on the forger and poisoner Thomas Griffiths Wainewright), âThe Decay of Lying' (a dialogue in praise of artifice over nature and art over morality), âThe Portrait of Mr W.H.' (on the supposed identity of the dedicatee of Shakespeare's sonnets) all published. |
| 1890 | The Picture of Dorian Gray published in the July number of Lippincott's Monthly Magazine; fierce debate between Wilde and hostile critics ensues. âThe True Function and Value of Criticism' (later revised and included in Intentions as âThe Critic as Artist') published. |
| 1891 | Wilde's first meeting with Lord Alfred Douglas (âBosie'). The Duchess of Padua performed in New York. âThe Soul of Man Under Socialism' and âPreface to Dorian Gray' published in February and March in the Fortnightly Review. The revised and extended edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray published by Ward, Lock and Company in April. Intentions (collection of critical essays), Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories and A House of Pomegranates (fairy-tales) published. |
| 1892 | Lady Windermere's Fan performed at St James's Theatre, London (February to July). |
| 1893 | Salome published in French. A Woman of No Importance performed at Haymarket Theatre, London. |
| 1894 | Salome published in English with illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley; Douglas is the dedicatee. The Sphinx, a poem with illustrations by Charles Ricketts, published. |
| 1895 | An Ideal Husband opens at Haymarket Theatre in January; it is followed by the hugely successful The Importance of Being Earnest at St James's Theatre in February. On 28 February Wilde returns to his club, the Albemarle, to find a card from Douglas's father, the Marquess of Queensberry, accusing Wilde of âposing as a somdomite' (sodomite). Wilde quickly takes out an action accusing Queensberry of criminal libel. In April Queensberry appears at the Old Bailey and is acquitted, following a successful plea of justification on the basis that Wilde was guilty of homosexual behaviour. Wilde is immediately arrested, after ignoring his friends' advice to flee the country. In May he is tried twice at the Old Bailey, and on 25 May sentenced to two years' imprisonment with hard labour for âacts of gross indecency with another male person'. In July he is sent to Wandsworth Prison. In November he is declared bankrupt, and shortly afterwards transferred to Reading Gaol. |
| 1896 | Death of Wilde's mother, Lady Jane Francesca Wilde (âSperanza'). |
| 1897 | Wilde writes the long letter to Douglas that would be later entitled âDe Profundis'. In May Wilde is released from prison, and sails for Dieppe by the night ferry. He never returns to Britain. |
| 1898 | The Ballad of Reading Gaol published pseudonymously as C.3.3, Wilde's cell-number in Reading Gaol. Wilde moves to Paris in February. Constance Wilde (who had by now changed her name to Holland) dies. |
| 1899 | Willie (b. 1852), Wilde's elder brother, dies. |
| 1900 | In January Queensberry dies. By July Wilde himself is very ill with a blood infection. On 29 November he is received into the Roman Catholic Church, and dies on 30 November in the Hotel d'Alsace in Paris. |
| 1905 | An abridged version of De Profundis, edited by Robert Ross, published. |
| 1908 | The Collected Works, edited by Robert Ross, are published. |
Editions and Collections
Wilde, Oscar,
The Picture of Dorian Gray
(1890 edition with 1891), ed. Donald L. Lawler (W. W. Norton & Co.: New York, 1987).
â,
The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde
(Harper Collins: Glasgow, 1994).
â,
The Uncollected Oscar Wilde
, ed.John Wysejackson (Fourth Estate: London, 1991).
â,
The Fireworks of Oscar Wilde
, ed. Owen Dudley Edwards (Barrie &Jenkins: London, 1989).
â,
The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays
, ed. Richard Gave (Penguin: Harmondsworth, 2000).
â,
Nothing Except My Genius
, ed. Alastair Rolfe (Penguin: Harmondsworth, 1997).
Hart-Davies, Rupert (ed.),
Letters of Oscar Wilde
(Rupert Hart-Davies: London, 1962).
â,
Selected Letters of Oscar Wilde
(Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1979).
â,
More Letters of Oscar Wilde
(John Murray: London, 1985).
Holland, Merlin and Rupert Hart-Davies,
The Complete Letters of Oscar
Wilde
(Fourth Estate: London, 2000).
Ellmann, Richard,
Oscar Wilde
(Penguin: Harmondsworth, 1987).
Harris, Frank,
Oscar Wilde
(Constable & Co.: London, 1938).
Jullian, Philippe,
Oscar Wilde (Paladin:
London, 1971).
Montgomery Hyde, H.,
The Trials of Oscar Wilde
(William Hodge & Co.: London, 1948).
Pearson, Hesketh,
The Life of Oscar Wilde
(Methuen & Co.: London, 1954).
Roditi, Edouard,
Oscar Wilde
(New Directions: New York, 1986).
Bartlett, Neil,
Who Was That Man? A Present for Mr Oscar Wilde
(Serpent's Tail: London, 1988).
Beckson, Karl (ed.),
Oscar Wilde: The Critical Heritage
(Routledge: London, 1970).
â,
An Oscar Wilde Encyclopedia
(AMS: Ann Arbor, Mich., 1998).
Bloom, Harold (ed.),
Oscar Wilde
(Chelsea: New York, 1985).
Bowlby, Rachel, âPromoting Dorian Gray',
Oxford Literary Review
9 (1987), 147â63.
Cohen, Ed,
Talk on the Wilde Side: Toward a Genealogy of a Discourse on Male Sexualities
(Routledge: New York and London, 1993).
Danson, Lawrence,
Wilde's Intentions: The Artist in his Criticism
(Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1997).
Espey, John, âResources for Wilde Studies at the Clark Library', in Richard Ellmann andjohn Espey (eds.),
Oscar Wilde, Two Approaches: Papers Read at a Clark Library Seminar
(William Andrews Clark Memorial Library: Los Angeles, Calif, 1977).
Gagnier, Regenia,
Idylls of the Marketplace: Oscar Wilde and the Victorian Public
(Scolar Press: Aldershot, 1986).
Goodman, Jonathan (ed.),
The Oscar Wilde File
(a collection of newspaper accounts of Wilde's trials) (Allison & Busby: London, 1988).
Hassler, Terri A., âThe Physiological Determinism Debate in Oscar Wilde's
The Picture of Dorian Gray, Victorian Newsletter
84 (1993), 31â5.
Lawler, Donald L., âOscar Wilde's First Manuscript of
The Picture of Dorian Gray
',
Studies in Bibliography
25 (1972), 125â35.
â,
An Inquiry into Oscar Wilde's Revisions of âThe Picture of Dorian Gray'
(Garland: New York, 1988).
Lawler, Donald L., and Charles E. Knott, âThe Context of Invention:
Suggested Origins
of Dorian Gray', Modern Philology
(1976), 389â98.
Mason, Stuart (Christopher Millard),
Oscar Wilde, Art and Morality: A record of the discussion which followed the publication of Dorian Gray'
(Frank Palmer: London, 1907; revised 1912).
Mikhail, E. H.,
Oscar Wilde: An Annotated Bibliography of Criticism
(London, 1978).
Moore-Gilbert, B.J., âOscar Wilde and Reader-Response Criticism', in Gary Day (ed.),
The British Critical Tradition: A Re-evaluation
(Macmillan: Basingstoke, 1993), 49â66.
Page, Norman,
An Oscar Wilde Chronology
(London, 1991).
Powell, Kerry, âTom, Dick and Dorian Gray: Magic Picture Mania in Late Victorian Fiction',
Philological Quarterly
62 (1982), 147â70.
Raby, Peter,
Oscar Wilde
(Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1988).
Sinfield, Alan,
The Wilde Century: Effeminacy, Oscar Wilde and the Queer Moment
(Cassell: London, 1994).
Acton, William,
Functions and Disorders of the Reproductive Organs
, 4th edn. (John Churchill & Sons: London, 1865).
Arata, Stephen D.,
Fictions of Loss in the Victorian Fin de SiÍcle'
(Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1996).
Baudelaire, Charles,
Selected Poems
, trans. Carol Clark (Penguin: Harmondsworth, 1995).
Beckson, Karl (ed.),
Aesthetes and Decadents of the i8gos: An Anthology of British Poetry and Prose (Academy
Chicago Publishers: Chicago, 1982).
Chamberlin, J. E.,
Ripe was the Drowsy Hour: The Age of Oscar Wilde
(New York, 1977).
Dowling, Linda,
Language and Decadence in the Victorian Fin de Siècle
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989).
Ellis, Henry Havelock,
The Criminal
(Walter Scott: London, 1890).
Ellis, Henry Havelock, and John Addington Symonds,
Sexual Inversion
(Wilson & Macmillan: London, 1897).
Eyries, Jean Baptiste Benoit (trans. and ed. Terry Hale),
Tales of the
Dead: The Ghost Stories of the Villa Diodati
(Gothic Society: Chislehurst, 1992).
Fletcher, Ian (ed.),
Decadence and the i8gos
(Edward Arnold: London, 1979).
Flint, Kate,
The Victorian Novelist: Social Problems and Social Change
(Groom Helm: London, 1987).
Frayling, Christopher,
Vampyres: From Lord Byron to Count Dracula
(Faber and Faber: London, 1992).
â,
Nightmare: The Birth of Horror
(BBC Books: London, 1996).
Gaunt, William,
The Aesthetic Adventure
(Jonathan Gape: London, 1945).
Gibbons, Tom,
Rooms at the Darwin Hotel: Studies in English Literary
Criticism and Ideas, 1880â1920
(Nedlands University Press: Western Australia, 1973).
Greenslade, William,
Degeneration, Culture and the Novel, 1880â1940
(Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1994).
Huysmans, Joris-Karl,
Against Nature
, trans. Robert Baldick (1884; Penguin: Harmondsworth, 1959).
Jackson, Holbrook,
The Eighteen Nineties
(1913; Pelican: Harmondsworth, 1939).
Krafft-Ebing, Richard von,
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(1886; F. A. Davis & Co.: Philadelphia, 1892).
Le Gallienne, Richard,
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(Robin Clark: London, 1993).
Maudsley, Henry,
Pathology of Mind
, 3rd edn. (Macmillan: London, 1895).
Mighall, Robert,
A Geography of Victorian Gothic Fiction: Mapping History's Nightmares
(Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1999).
Milligan, Barry,
Pleasures and Pains: Opium and the Orient in Nineteenth-Century British Culture
(University of Virginia Press: Charlottesville, 1995).
Nisbet, J. F.,
Marriage and Heredity: A View of Psychological Evolution
(Ward & Downey, 1889).
Nordau, Max Simon,
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(1892; English translation 1895; Nebraska University Press: Lincoln and London, 1993).
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(Harvester-Wheatsheaf: Hemel Hempstead, 1989).
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(Faber & Faber: London, 2001).
Thornton, R. K. R.,
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(Edward Arnold: London, 1983).
Tissot, Samuel,
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, trans. âA Physician' (1760; Collins & Hannay: New York, 1832).
Tylor, Edward,
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, 2 vols. (John Murray: London, 1871).
Von Eckardt, Wolf, Oilman, Sander L., and Ghamberlin, J. Edward,
Oscar Wilde's London
(Michael O'Mara: London, 1987).
White, Arnold,
The Problems of a Great City
(Remington & Co.: London, 1886).