01/22/2018
Mendelssohn (Henry James), a professor of English at Oxford, peripatetically, and not quite satisfyingly, reexamines Oscar Wilde’s self-mythologization, reinvention, and rise to celebrity, mostly in terms of Wilde’s 1882 speaking tour of the United States. Straining to broaden the focus from Wilde’s own career to a larger cultural context, Mendelssohn emphasizes how the author was caught up in the racial, ethnic, and class anxieties roiling a post–Civil War America full of newly arrived immigrants, many from Wilde’s native Ireland. After describing Wilde’s early life and university career, the book shifts focus to the then-little-known 27-year-old Wilde’s time crisscrossing the U.S. talking about the Aesthetic art movement that he so flamboyantly represented. Though Wilde would paint the tour as a success, in fact he often found himself the subject of mockery and hostile scrutiny. Mendelssohn argues that Wilde nevertheless learned twin lessons in perseverance and showmanship that served him in good stead in writing the plays that would subsequently secure his fame. Mendelssohn’s study never quite settles, as it tries to meld biography with an expansive cultural history filtered through the lens of Wilde’s visit and interactions. Nonetheless, there is much to ponder in Mendelssohn’s analysis, whether one agrees with it or not, and it will hopefully inform future discussions of Wilde. (July)
Making Oscar Wilde
Narrated by Leslie Howard
Michele MendelssohnUnabridged — 11 hours, 0 minutes
Making Oscar Wilde
Narrated by Leslie Howard
Michele MendelssohnUnabridged — 11 hours, 0 minutes
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Overview
Combining new evidence and gripping cultural history, Michele Mendelssohn dramatizes Wilde's rise, fall, and resurrection as part of a spectacular transatlantic pageant. With superb style and an instinct for storytelling, she brings to life the charming young Irishman who set out to captivate the United States and Britain with his words and ended up conquering the world.
Following the twists and turns of Wilde's journey, Mendelssohn vividly depicts sensation-hungry Victorian journalism and popular entertainment alongside racial controversies, sex scandals, and the growth of Irish nationalism. This groundbreaking revisionist history shows how Wilde's tumultuous early life embodies the story of the Victorian era as it tottered towards modernity. Riveting and original, Making Oscar Wilde is a masterful account of a life like no other.
Editorial Reviews
"There is much to ponder in Mendelssohn's analysis." — Publishers Weekly
"One of the most devastating, complex and presently political literary biographies I've ever read." — Eileen Myles, poet, novelist, performer, and art journalist
"Michele Mendelssohn's Making Oscar Wilde is a fresh, exciting and illuminating study of the construction of celebrity and reputation. Looking at Wilde's trip to the United States in 1882, Mendelssohn shows both how stereotypes of the wild Irish immigrant and the minstrel show, and the promotional strategies of Wilde and his tour manager, made him a controversial star. The story of St. Oscar will never be the same." — Elaine Showalter
"Michele Mendelssohn's vividly written, consistently illuminating, and lavishly illustrated book is full of surprises, above all in showing how Wilde's Irishness played into the story of race relations in post-Civil War America." — Michael Gorra, author of Portrait of a Novel: Henry James and the Making of an American Masterpiece
"A scholastic triumph, this highly original book rewrites the story of Oscar's tour of America with new, vivid detail, from fresh, unmined sources. Presenting the young Wilde caught in up a complex web of social and racial prejudices, Mendelssohn not only offers us a surprising view of Oscar through the lens of 19th [century] America, but refocuses the young Wilde for a new generation." — Franny Moyle
"An original, meticulously-researched and beautifully-paced account of how a modern writer invented himself, and was invented, as an international artist-celebrity. He made his world, but not in conditions of his own choosing. This stylish meditation on the mysteries of identity illustrates Wilde's belief that the best way to intensify a personality is to multiply it." — Declan Kiberd, author of Ulysses and Us
"Mendelssohn offers a solid introduction to Wilde... [This] well-told account paints an unsettling picture of post-Civil War America's racism and xenophobia."—Library Journal
"Mendelssohn's contribution to Wilde's legacy is her fresh look at the American tour, providing social and cultural context... A familiar biography embedded in a lively cultural history."—Kirkus
"Making Oscar Wilde succeeds commendably at what it sets out to do: offering a vivid, intelligent look at Victorian celebrity culture through the rise to fame of one of its brightest stars."—New York Journal of Books
"[An] enlightening and provocative study... Mendelssohn's is the first Wilde biography to assert the centrality of American culture to his formation as a thinker, an artist, a 'spectacle-maker,' and ultimately as an Irishman... By turning her archival eye to historical representations of race and ethnicity, Mendelssohn also manages to give us an Oscar Wilde for our time."—Literary Review of Canada
"Provocative... Mendelssohn's detailed examination—geared more to the devout Wildephile than to the casual fan—is compelling."—Washington Post
"[A] fascinating account of Wilde's early career."—New Yorker
"[An] astonishing demonstration that just when you thought you knew everything about the life of Oscar Wilde, there's more."—Gay & Lesbian Review
"The writing is compelling and easy to follow, the tone light, the focus unusual and enlightening."—Choice Reviews
"You may not think there is new stuff to learn about Oscar Wilde, but there is—as this book proves. Mich le Mendelssohn has succeeded in throwing new light on Wilde's remarkable American lecture tour. Thoroughly researched and beautifully written, this is a valuable addition to Wildean scholarship."—- Gyles Brandreth, President of the Oscar Wilde Society and author of The Oscar Wilde Murder Mysteries
"A stylish account of [Wilde's] tumultuous rise, fall and resurrection... a hugely important and enjoyable book."— Mal Rogers, Irish Post
"Mendelssohn's remarkable book focuses on the American year... it uncovers material missed by lengthier biographies, even Richard Ellmann's, and conveys the excitement of real research and discovery."—John Carey, Sunday Times (UK)
"A retelling of Wilde's American adventure that genuinely makes you rethink vital elements of his life and work ... Mendelssohn's research is prodigious: she has tapped sources previously unavailable to other scholars."—Rachel Cooke, The Observer (UK)
"A fascinating account of how young Wilde's flair for self-promotion aligned with the birth of celebrity culture during the age of Barnum."—Jane Ciabattari, BBC Culture
"Now that America has come to seem so unsettled and so strange, Mich le Mendelssohn's Making Oscar Wilde help us to become more alarmed."—Colm T ib n, The Guardian
"An extraordinary new take on Wilde. Even those who claim to know him intimately will be astonished and enthralled by Mendelssohn's fresh perspective on his multifaceted life."
—Eleanor Fitzsimons, The Irish Times
"An astonishing window into Wilde's American flaneuring, adding to what even extreme Oscar-obsessives like me thought they knew."—Ben Shields, Paris Review
"Both tragic and touching, Mendelssohn has penned a biography worthy of its subject.. She takes the reader behind the scenes of Victorian England and post-Civil War America to reveal a secret self-creation that would make modern internet influencers turn green with envy."
—The Advocate, "The Best Books We Read in 2018"
"Her innovative approach and exploration of unsuspected territory has yielded rich results, illuminating new aspects of Wilde's life and afterlife... [A] lively, original and valuable work."—America Magazine
03/01/2018
Mendelssohn (English literature, Oxford Univ.; Henry James, Oscar Wilde and Aesthetic Culture) here surveys Oscar Wilde's entire life (and afterlife), but most of her book is devoted to his 1882 American lecture tour. The author focuses less on the content of the lectures than on the often-hostile responses Wilde inspired. Some of these negative reactions resulted from his flamboyant dress and mannerisms, but much also reflected late 19th-century Celtophobia, leading to attacks on him in the Washington Post, Harper's Weekly, and other periodicals. Mendelssohn shows that this anti-Irish sentiment was combined with Negrophobia, with Wilde sometimes presented in minstrel shows and posters in blackface. Indeed, this book was inspired by Mendelssohn seeing the racist 1882 Currier & Ives poster "The Aesthetic Craze," which portrays Wilde as a African American dandy and features an offensive caption. Mendelssohn claims Wilde drew on this when he wrote his comedies of the 1890s, and the Celtophobia he encountered in America fostered his Irish patriotism. His tour was modestly successful, earning him $5,605, which English newspaper accounts increased five-fold. VERDICT Without actually justifying her book's title, Mendelssohn offers a solid introduction to Wilde (though the definitive biography remains Richard Ellman's Oscar Wilde). Her well-told account paints an unsettling picture of post-Civil War America's racism and xenophobia.—Joseph Rosenblum, Univ. of North Carolina, Greensboro
2018-04-11
A fresh look at Oscar Wilde's English, Irish, and American contexts.As "gay history's Christ figure," Wilde (1854-1900) has been amply investigated by biographers and literary historians, but Mendelssohn (English/Oxford Univ.; Henry James, Oscar Wilde and Aesthetic Culture, 2007, etc.) was surprised by a discovery she made in a library archive: six small cards, each depicting Wilde with a different ethnicity: Irish, Chinese, French, German, black, and white American. In addition, she found a Currier and Ives poster of Wilde with brown skin, thick lips, and "spiky Afro hair." The provocative images, she writes, inspired her quest "to solve the mystery of Wilde's identity." Although she claims that her research reveals a "secret life" unknown to previous writers, in fact much of Mendelssohn's entertaining study conveys a familiar portrait of the ambitious aesthete: his "larger-than-life parents," Sir William, a renowned oculist, and his eccentric wife, Jane; Wilde's experiences at Oxford, where he hosted "exotic" soirees in his college rooms and won honors for his intellectual prowess; his literary reputation as a poet and playwright; his exhausting American tour; marriage and fatherhood; and his precipitous downfall, which led to incarceration in Reading Gaol. Mendelssohn's contribution to Wilde's legacy is her fresh look at the American tour, providing social and cultural context that helps to explain the mystery of the disconcerting images. In 1882, Wilde disembarked in New York into a swirling eddy of assumptions about race, class, and gender. The foppish 27-year-old generated curiosity—sometimes cruel—about his manliness. His lectures, which at first were "painful," the New York Times reported, invited parodies. His unscrupulous manager promoted him as if he were one of P.T. Barnum's freaks, and the press mounted "degrading attacks," such as caricaturing him as "Mr Wild of Borneo," an image of Wilde as "a negrified Paddy." Blackface minstrelsy, a hugely popular form of entertainment, lampooned him. The Currier and Ives poster, Mendelssohn concludes, reflected the inseparable connection of "Negrophobia and Celtophobia" in 19th-century America.A familiar biography embedded in a lively cultural history.
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940177589718 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Tantor Audio |
| Publication date: | 08/04/2020 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
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