OSCAR WILDE & SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS - The Mystery of 'The Portrait of Mr. W.H.'

 

 

 

 

I am delighted that my latest book - Oscar Wilde & Shakespeare's Sonnets - has been published and is available on Amazon marketplaces. 

As the subtitle indicates, this is a study of Oscar Wilde's The Portrait of Mr. W.H. which was his analysis of Shakespeare's Sonnets which purports to identify the young man - Mr. W.H. - to whom they are dedicated by the publisher, Thomas Thorpe:

TO . THE . ONLIE . BEGETTER . OF .

THESE . INSVING . SONNETS .

Mr. W.H. ...

Many candidates have been suggested as 'Mr. W.H.' and Wilde's suggestion is a fascinating alternative. 

His magazine article was published in 1889 and Wilde then decided to extend it into a book-length study. Unfortunately this was not published and in the chaos of his trials his manuscript disappeared. Twenty years after his death a manuscript was found and was published as Wilde's missing masterpiece. But was this Wilde's final thoughts?

These are some of the issues I study in Oscar Wilde & Shakespeare's Sonnets which also considers his fictional works including The Picture of Dorian Gray, Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and his critical works including The Decay of Lying and The Critic as Artist.

It is an engrossing literary detective story beginning in the wealthy and fashionable area of St. James’s in Westminster, London. This is the world which Wilde wrote about and inhabited until 1895. Wilde’s life in London, his homosexual experiences and the creation of his greatest works all feature in this major critical work.