Oscar Wilde’s misattributions : a legacy of gross indecency
Abstract
Drawing on correspondence and periodical advertising as well as paratextual and bibliographic detail, this paper compares editions of the three most prominent texts falsely associated with Oscar Wilde: The Green Carnation (1894), an intimate satire on Wilde’s relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas actually written by Douglas’ friend Robert Smythe Hichens; “The Priest and the Acolyte” (1894), a paedophilic story written by John Francis Bloxam and presented as evidence against Wilde during his libel trial and then privately reprinted; and the erotic novel Teleny (1893), which is still attributed to Wilde today. His name appeared in tandem with these novels over the course of a century, linking him further with sex and scandal. Two separate editions of Teleny in 1984 and 1986 feature introductions by Winston Leyland and John McRae, respectively justifying Wilde’s authorship and describing the work as likely a round-robin pornographic collaboration between Wilde and his young friends. By recognising and exposing these cases of literary impersonation, we can amend Wilde’s legacy.
Citation
García-Walsh , K 2021 , ' Oscar Wilde’s misattributions : a legacy of gross indecency ' , Victorian Popular Fictions , vol. 3 , no. 2 , pp. 189-208 . https://doi.org/10.46911/PYIV5690
Publication
Victorian Popular Fictions
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
2632-4253Type
Journal article
Rights
Copyright © 2021 The Author(s). Open Access. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
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