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| Front cover: Oscar Wilde, March 1884 |
‘Oscar Wilde - A Vagabond with a Mission’ gives a
vivid picture of Oscar Wilde lecturing throughout Britain and Ireland on his
way to becoming one of the most famous writers of the time.
This
is the first study of Wilde’s lecture tours of Britain and Ireland. Using
letters, memoirs, biographies, previously unpublished information and thousands
of contemporary newspaper accounts, I give a portrait of Wilde
which we have never seen before.
Wilde
lectured between 1883 and 1889 on important artistic and social topics of the
day. Controversy was never far from everything he said and did. He drew
audiences of thousands of people. Hitherto these lectures have been given
little attention but they had significant implications for Wilde’s artistic
development and they also gave him an opportunity to re-enter the world of journalism.
These
were very important years for Wilde: he became engaged and married Constance
Lloyd, he took a new home in Chelsea, became a father to two sons and was an
increasingly active homosexual. All this happened as he travelled from Cornwall
to Scotland, and from Norfolk to the west coast of Ireland, visiting almost
every town of any significance in between.
In
particular, this book looks in detail at Wilde’s visits to West Yorkshire, the
North East of England, the Lake District, Scotland, Ireland and the West
Midlands.
‘I have been,’
said Wilde, ‘civilising the provinces by my remarkable lectures … lecturing and
wandering –a vagabond with a mission!’
Praise for ‘Oscar
Wilde –A Vagabond With a Mission’
Geoff Dibb digs deep into ground over which Oscar's biographers have so
far merely skated. His tireless researches have produced a treasure trove of
lecture extracts, contemporary press reports and ephemera that shine
significant new light on a formative period in Wilde's life and literary
development.
JONATHAN FRYER Writer and broadcaster
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