An Electronic Journal for the Exchange of Information

on Current Research, Publications and Productions

concerning

Oscar Wilde and His Circles

Vol. II No. 4

Issue no. 11: April 2002

Notice of the tenth (March) issue of THE OSCHOLARS was transmitted to 568 readers. Since then, the number of those registered as readers of the journal has risen to 603 in thirty-five countries, the great majority in one or other of 236 universities or university colleges from King's, Cambridge to Queen's, Ontario. THE OSCHOLARS is also subscribed in the City Library, Ystad, Sweden; the National Library of Ireland; the Library of Trinity College, Dublin; the Library of the Instituto de Artes del Espectáculo, University of Buenos Aires; and the Fair Oaks Farm Library.

Plans continue for 'Staging Wilde', the first OSCHOLARS colloquium on Oscar Wilde, which will take place in Senate House, University of London, on Tuesday 25th June in collaboration with the Institute of English Studies www.sas.ac.uk/ies/conferences. The fee for the day will be £25.00, £15.00 concessions. Coffee/tea and biscuits will be provided, and lunch facilities are available in Senate House at the Macmillan Restaurant. We hope that the day will conclude with a reception.

Numbers are limited to one hundred; all bookings up to 1st May will be at the concessionary rate. (Cheques, money orders should be made out to THE OSCHOLARS.) As the Colloquium is being widely promoted, we urge early booking.

Speakers will be

John H. Bartlett, author/actor of the Wilde play That Tiger Life, on staging Wilde as a one-man show;

Patricia Flanagan Behrendt, Associate Professor, Department of Theatre Arts, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, who will give a paper 'Neither On Nor Off, Nor In Nor Out: Upstaged Fathers in Plays by Wilde';

Yvonne Brewster, director of the Talawa Theatre Company, who will talk about her 1989 all-black production of 'The Importance of Being Earnest';

Robert Gordon, Reader in Drama and Head of the Drama Department at Goldsmiths College, on the staging of the 'society plays' in Britain the last decade;

Joel Kaplan, Professor of Drama and Head of the Department of Drama and Theatre Arts, University of Birmingham, on 'An Earnest for Our Time: KAOS, Handbag and Lady Bracknell's Confinement';

Xavier Leret, Director of the KAOS Theatre Company, on the KAOS production of "The Importance of being Earnest'

Frederick Roden, Assistant Professor of English, University of Connecticut, on 'Staging Wilde in the Classroom';

Robert Tanitch, author of Oscar Wilde On Stage and Screen (London: Methuen 1999).

The full programme will be published in the May issue of THE OSCHOLARS and on the Conference website at http://www.sas.ac.uk/ies/conferences.

As always, suggestions for improvements, additions and above all corrections, to THE OSCHOLARS are very welcome.

To help navigation: by clicking on any Green Carnation displayed thus , you can go directly to the Table of Contents. to the hub page ; to THE OSCHOLARS home page .

The continued, welcome and somewhat unexpected, expansion in readership places upon THE OSCHOLARS the obligation to increase its range and coverage. Over the next months, we will be identifying those areas and subjects in which we feel the need to strengthen our outreach. We are very pleased that Eva Thienpont of the University of Ghent has agreed to be Assistant Editor with a view to undertaking this in regard to her native Flanders and to The Netherlands. Readers of THE OSCHOLARS will be familiar with her notable Wilde website, to be found at
http://users.belgacom.net/wilde/start.html

We have long been aware that the section 'Some Sell and Others Buy' has been more than a little narcoleptic. We are the more pleased, therefore, to carry this month a selection of books from the current catalogue of R.A. Gekoski Ltd, and we thank Rick Gekoski and Peter Grogan for this.

This issue also sees the introduction of anew correspondence section. This will be viâ a link from our home page to a JISCmail page. JISCmail is the (British) National Academic Mailing List, the equivalent of the North American LISTSERV, and will function throughout the month. It operates in a way not dissimilar to Yahoo discussion groups, but is linked to other academic sites. It will only be accessible to readers of THE OSCHOLARS, who will be able to inaugurate their own discussions and controversies where these are germane to the purposes of THE OSCHOLARS. We will use it to announce news that arrives after our copydate, and we also hope it will serve in particular to keep student readers in touch with one another. It can also be accessed from within THE OSCHOLARS when printed as a link, thus: JISCmail.

Nothing in THE OSCHOLARS© is copyright to the Journal (although it may be to individual writers) unless indicated by ©,and the usual etiquette of attribution will doubtless be observed. Please feel free to download it, re-format it, print it, store it electronically whole or in part, copy and paste parts of it, and (of course) forward it to colleagues.

As usual, names emboldened in the text are those of subscribers to THE OSCHOLARS, who may be contacted through Melmoth@aliceadsl.fr. Underlined text in blue can be clicked for navigation through the document or to other addresses.

The Swedish translation of 'There is only one thing worse than being talked about' has been kindly supplied by Irene Gilsenan-Nordin of University College, Dalarna. A note on this appears below.

The technical assistance of Dr John Phelps of Goldsmiths College has remained invaluable; but the errors remain the Editor's.

Editor:

D.C. Rose

1 rue Gutenberg

75015 Paris

Assistant Editor

for Flanders and The Netherlands:

Eva Thienpont

Faculteit Letteren en Wijsbegeerte

Rijksuniversiteit Gent

Belgium

oscholars@tiscali.be

[Please only contact by e-mail in the first instance]

TABLE OF CONTENTS Click on any entry for direct access
I. GUIDANCE FOR SUBMISSIONS.	12. Women in Nineteenth-Century American Theatre.
II. NEWS FROM SUBSCRIBERS.	13. Victorian Institutions.
1. Publications and Papers.	14. Society for Utopian Studies.
2. The Oscar Wilde Societies.	15. Trans/Inter-Cultural Communication.
3. Film	16. Children's and Young Adult Literature.
4. Wilde on the Curriculum.	17. Victorian Travel & Travellers.
5. Work in Progress.	18. L'Irlande et ses Représentations.
6. Broadcasts.	19. Victorian Gothic.
III. THE CRITIC AS CRITIC.	20. Nineteenth-Century Feminisms.
1. Wilde in Sydney.	VI. NOTES AND QUERIES.
2. Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name in Ghent.	1. Obituary.
3. Patience in Exeter.	2. Naming Names.
4. Adrian Frazier on Melissa Knox.	3. Oscar Wilde's sailing to America.
IV. NEWS FROM ELSEWHERE.	4. The Ballad of Reading Gaol.
1. Entertainment.	5. The Nightingale and the Rose.
2. Exhibitions.	6. Thomas Bell.
3. Talks and Visits.	7. Evelyn De Morgan and William De Morgan.
4. Conferences.	8. Eleonora Duse.
a. Architecture and History.	9. Arthur Symons.
b. St Patrick's College Inaugural Irish Research Seminar.	10. The Voice of Oscar Wilde.
c. Colloquium on Gender, Sexuality and Queer Studies.	11. The Ned Blessing TV Episode with Oscar Wilde.
d. Roger Casement, The Third London Colloquium.	12. Oscar in Popular Culture.
e. Victorian Shakespeare.	13. Wilde as Unpopular Culture.
f. Victorian Anxieties.	14. Picked from the Platter.
g. 'New Approaches to Zola'.	15. Corrigendum.
h. Midwest Victorian Studies Association.	VII. 'MAD, SCARLET MUSIC'.
i. Northeast Victorian Studies Association.	VIII. GOING WILDE: Productions in April.
j. Midlands Interdisciplinary Victorian Studies Seminar.	1. England.
k. Gay Æsthetes at the Fin-de-Siècle.	2. France.
5. Papers and Publications.	3. Germany.
V. BEING TALKED ABOUT: CALLS FOR PAPERS.	4. Russia.
1. Æstheticism and Modernism.	5. Scotland.
2. Idealisms and Materialisms.	6. The United States.
3. Love and Sexuality.	IX. THE OTHER OSCAR.
4. William Morris Society Sessions.	X. WEB FOOT NOTES.
5. 'Queer Lives/Public Performances: Gender, Performance and Performativity in Nineteenth Century England'.	XI. SOME SELL AND OTHERS BUY.
6. Film and Literature.	XII. A WILDE APRIL.
7. 'Illustration/Re-illustration/De-illustration'.	XIII. AND I? MAY I SAY NOTHING?
8. Victorian session at the Mid-Atlantic Popular Culture.	1. Salome and Eleonora Duse.
9. Midwest Conference on British Studies.	2. Melissa Knox and Adrian Frazier.
10. The representations of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, and transvestite.	XIV. THE OSCAR WILDE SOCIETY AND THE WILDËAN.
11. Film (Open Topic).
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I. GUIDANCE FOR SUBMISSIONS

Publication is on the last day of each month (or if this is not possible, the first day of the next); copydate is not later than the 25th.

Please specify if you wish your e-mail address to be included.

Work in Progress: Please give the provisional title, status (e.g. article, book, M.A. Dissertation, Ph.D. thesis etc.) and where appropriate your university affiliation.

Publications: Full title, publisher, place and date of publication as usual, ISBN if possible.

Notices: If you are kindly submitting notices of events, such as conferences, productions, broadcasts or lectures, please include as many details as you can: venue, date, time, and contact addressif possible or relevant.

Notes & Queries: Please keep these reasonably short, and use the section 'And I? May I say nothing?' for longer pieces.

II. NEWS FROM SUBSCRIBERS

1. Publications and Papers

Hillary O'Macke ('Independent Scholar, and Dragon at the Gate of "Hopkins World"') draws our attention to the Gerard Manley Hopkins website http://gmhworld.topcities.com/

v We would both be interested in hearing about anybody who is working on Hopkins in association with Wilde. The only instance we know of this is Denis Donoghue's 'The Oxford of Pater, Hopkins and Wilde' in C. George Sandulescu (ed.): Rediscovering Oscar Wilde. Princess Grace Irish Library vol 8. Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1994

Meri-Jane Rochelson (Florida International University) reviews Amy Levy: Her Life and Letters by Linda Hunt Beckman in Victorians Institute Journal volume 29 (2001). A letter from Oscar Wilde to Amy Levy is in Holland & Hart Davis, p.326

Frederick S. Roden (University of Connecticut) is giving a paper on 'Marc-André Raffalovich and Victorian Historicizations of Homosexuality' at the Northeast Victorian Studies Association Annual Meeting, 19th to 21st April at Queens University, Kingston, Ontario. http://www.stonehill.edu/nvsa/flyer2002.htm

Margaret Stetz (Georgetown University, and currently a full time visiting faculty member in the Women's Studies Program at the University of Delaware for Spring & Fall 2002), writes

Two recent publications by me are:

'The New Woman and the British Periodical Press of the 1890s' in the Journal of Victorian Culture, 6.2. Autumn 2001 issue, pp.272-285 [includes a discussion of Wilde's editorship of Woman's World]; and

Review of James G. Nelson's book, Publisher to the Decadents: Leonard Smithers in the Careers of Beardsley, Wilde, Dowson in Nineteenth-Century Literature, 56.3. December 2001, pp.414-419.

Eibhear Walshe (National University of Ireland, Cork) is giving a paper on 'Vile Bodies: Wilde's Queer Identity' at University College Dublin on 22nd April. For details of the Colloquium of which this a part, click here.

___________________

Andreas Hüther (University of Limerick) most kindly provides the following:

An incomplete bibliography of German language publications regarding Oscar Wilde, 1990-2002

Ahn, Bang-Soon, Dekadenz in der Dichtung des Fin de siècle (Göttingen University Dissertation 1996 and Göttingen, Cuvillier-Verlag, 1996).

Belford, Barbara, Oscar Wilde, ein paradoxes Genie: eine Biographie (trans. by Susanne Luber, Zürich, Haffmans, 2000).

Brittnacher, Hans Richard, '"Der Geck wartragisch": Hoffmannsthal Nachruf auf Oscar Wilde', in Forum Homosexualität und Literatur 26 (1996), pp. 27-41.

Detering, Heinz, '"Der Literat als Abenteurer”" Tonio Kröger zwischen Dorian Gray und der Tod in Venedig’, Forum Homosexualität und Literatur 14 (1992), pp. 5-22.

Ellmann, Richard, Oscar Wilde (trans. by Hans Wolf, Munich and Zürich, Piper, 2000).

Funke, Peter (ed.), Oscar Wilde: mit Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten (16th edition, Reinbek bei Hamburg, Rowohlt, Rowohlts Monographien 148, 1997).

Gentz, Regina, Das erzählerische Werk Oscar Wildes (Frankfurt/Main, P. Lang, Literarische Studien3, 1995).

Gerigk, Horst-Jürgen, 'Literarische Vergänglichkeit: Notizen zu Oscar Wildes Bildnis des Dorian Gray und Hugo von Hofmannsthals Rosenkavalier mit Rücksicht auf Johann Peter Hebels Unverhofftes Wiedersehen' in Kapp, Volker; Kiesel, Helmut and Lubbers, Klaus (eds.), Bilderwelten als Vergegenwärtigung und Verrätselungder Welt: Literatur und Kunst um die Jahrhundertwende (Berlin, Duncker & Humblot, 1997), pp.139-144.

Hänsel-Hohenhausen, Markus, Diefrühe deutschsprchige Oscar-Wilde-Rezeption, 1893-1906 (1990; Egelsbach et al., Dr. Hänsel-Hohenhausen Verlag, 2nd edition, Deutsche Hochschulschriften 1167, 1999).

Hermes, Beate, Felix Paul Greve als Übersetzer von Gide und Wilde: eine Unter-suchung zum Übersetzerstil (Frankfurt/Main et al., P. Lang, Neue Studien zur Anglistik und Amerikanistik vol. 71, 1997).

Hess-Lüttich, Ernest W.B., 'Dandy, Camp und Fin du Globe. Wildes Inversion viktorianischer Werte', Forum Homosexualität und Literatur 26 (1996), pp. 43-69.

Juranek, Christian (ed.), Die Erfindungdes Schönen: Oscar Wilde und das England des 19. Jahrhunderts. Anläßlich der Sonderausstellung der Schloß Wernigerode GmbH, Schloß Wernigerode, Zentrum für Kunst- und Kulturgeschichte des 19. Jahr-hunderts "Die Erfindung des Schönen" (Halle an der Saale, Stekovics, Edition Schloss Wernigerode vol. 3, 2000).

Klee, Wanda G., Leibhaftige Dekadenz: Studien zur Körperlichkeit in ausgewählten Werken von Joris-Karl Huysmans und Oscar Wilde (Heidelberg, Winter, Britannica et Americana 3rd series, vol. 20, 2001).

Kohl, Norbert (ed.), Oscar Wilde im Spiegel des Jahrhunderts: Erinnerungen, Kommentare, Bedeutungen (Frankfurt/Main & Leipzig, Insel, 2000).

Kohl, Norbert, Oscar Wilde (Frankfurt/Main & Leipzig, Insel, 2000).

Kohlmayer, Rainer, 'Sprachkomikbei Wilde und bei seinen deutschen Übersetzern: Normalisierung, Konfliktdämpfungund Selbstzensur in den frühen Komödienüber-setzungen' in Fritz, Paul; Ranke, Wolfgang; und Schultze, Brigitte (eds.), Europäische Komödie im übersetzerischen Transfer (Tübingen, Narr, 1993), pp.345-384.

Kohlmayer, Rainer, 'Übersetzungals ideologische Anpassung: Oscar Wildes Gesellschaftskomödien mit nationalsozialistischer Botschaft' in Snell-Hornby, Mary; Pöchhacker, Franz and Kaindl, Klaus (eds.), Translation Studies: An Interdiscipline (Amsterdam, Benjamins, 1994), pp.91-101.

Kohlmayer, Rainer, Oscar Wildein Deutschland und Österreich: Untersuchungen zur Rezeption derKomödien und zur Theorie der Bühnenübersetzung (Tübingen, Max Niemeyer, Theatron vol. 20, 1996).

Krämer, Gernot, "Der Mord als eine schöne Kunst betrachtet": zur ästhetischen Valenz eines Motivs bei Thomas de Quincy, Oscar Wilde und Marcel Schwob (Bielefeld, Aisthesis, 1999).

Pesch, Josef W., Wilde, about Joyce:zur Umsetzung ästhetizistischer Kunsttheorie in der literarischen Praxis der Moderne (Frankfurt/Main, P. Lang, Münsteraner Monographienzur englischen Literatur, vol. 8, 1992).

Rademacher, Jörg, Oscar Wilde(München, dtv, 2000).

Rosteck, Jens, Die Sphinx verstummt: OscarWilde in Paris (Berlin and Munich, Propyläen, 2000).

Wilde, Oscar, Das Bildnis des Dorian Gray: der unzensierte Wortlaut des Skandal-romans (edited and trans. by Jörg W. Rademacher, Frankfurt/Main, Eichborn, 2000).

Wintermans, Caspar, Lord Alfred Douglas,ein Leben im Schatten von Oscar Wilde (trans. from Dutch by Christiane Kuby, Munich, Blessing, 2001).

Zelter, Joachim, Sinnhafte Fiktion und Wahrheit: Untersuchungen zur ästhetischen und epistemologischen Problematikdes Fiktionsbegriffs im Kontext europäischer Ideen- und englischer Literaturgeschichte (Tübingen, Max Niemeyer, Studien zur englischen Philologie vol. 32, 1994).

____________________

We will slip in here two other bibliographical notes, as we have notspotted them in other bibliographies:

David Lodge: 'Oscar Wilde: "The Ballad of Reading Gaol"", in David Lodge: The Modes of Modern Writing, Metaphor, Metonymy, and the Typology of Modern Literature. London: Arnold 1977, ninth impression 1997 pp.17-22.

David Punter: 'Gothic and Decadence: Robert Louis Stevenson, Oscar Wilde, H.G. Wells, Bram Stoker, Arthur Machen'. This is Chapter One in David Punter: The Literature of Terror, A history of Gothic Fictions from 1765 to the present day. Volume II: The Modern Gothic. Harlow, Essex; and New York: Addison Wesley Longman Ltd 1996. We are grateful to Linda Dryden (Napier University) for this reference.

2. The Oscar Wilde Societies

The inaugural celebration of the new Oscar Wilde Society of America, founded by Marilyn Bisch and Joan Navarre, was held in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, on 16th March.

Marilyn Bisch writes

The Oscar Wilde Society of America held its Inaugural Celebration in St Paul, Minnesota, on the weekend of St Patrick's Day, 2002.

Many thanks to all who made this a wonderful celebration either by attending or by sending greetings. You were all there either in person or in spirit. And it was a most festive occasion.

Wilde scholars will, we believe from our experience, find a very warm welcome in Minneapolis and St Paul.

The Center for Irish Studies at St Thomas University invited the OWSOA to take part in the annual St Patrick's Day Open House on15 March. Scholars of Irish Studies have a fine resource in the Center's collections.

The University of Minnesota joined the celebration with a beautiful exhibition created by Special Collections curator Tim Johnson. The exhibit includes an original Oscar letter – dated 16 March 1882, and written from St Paul -- among the 65 Oscar items in 10 cases. The exhibit will run through April 1 at the Andersen Library. Go to see it if you can. It is beautiful.

On 16 March members of the society marched in the annual St Patrick's Day Parade through downtown St Paul. The Grand Marshall of the parade was St Paul Mayor Randy Kelly, who also officially declared 16 March 'Oscar Wilde Day' in the city.

The programme consisted of a day long poster exhibition in the Archbishop Ireland Room of the Saint Paul Hotel, participation of society members and supporters in the Saint Patrick's Day Parade and, during the afternoon, a talk by Professor Andrew Elfenbein (University of Minnesota) on 'Oscar Wilde: Shame and Beauty'. There was also an address by the well-known poet James Liddy,who has been made Poet Laureate of the Oscar Wilde Society of America. Proceedings concluded with a reading of The Selfish Giant and The Remarkable Rocket by The Red Cedar Dramatic Company.

Anyone interested in the new American society may contact us via our web page

http://www.indstate.edu/humanities/owsoa.htm or by post to

Marilyn Bisch, President of the OWSOA, Department of Humanities, Indiana State University, Terre Haute IN 47809, USA.

The other officers of the Society are

Joan Navarre, Vice President; e-mail jnavarre@hotmail.com

Richard Freed, Treasurer; English Department; Case Annex 488; Eastern Kentucky University; Richmond, Kentucky 40475. e-mail Richard.Freed@eku.edu

John B Thomas III, Secretary; Harry RansomHumanities Research Center; The University of Texas at Austin.

Donald Mead (Oscar Wilde Society,Great Britain) has provided Society's events programme for the first half of 2002. These events are only open to members of the Society, but details of membership may be obtained by reference to the Society's sectionof THE OSCHOLARS (see below).

3rd to 5th May: Weekend in Dieppe and Berneval

20th July: Lunch at Magdalen College, Oxford.

A new edition of Intentions will be published in April.

Project Oscar Wilde announce their

Oscar Wilde Festival -Ireland

Tickets are now on sale for the OSCAR WILDE WEEKEND FESTIVAL in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, N Ireland.

The Festival, which runs from 31st May to 2nd June, is a celebrationof the seven years Oscar Wilde spent at Portora Royal School in Enniskillen from 1864-1871. It is the first major literary event of its kind in this area of Ireland and comprises an exciting mix of academic, literaryand social activities.

On the Friday evening (31st May) Guest Speaker at The Oscar Wilde Festival Dinner in the Killyhevlin Hotel is Senator David Norris who will give an address entitiled, 'The Green Carnation and The Queer Nation - Oscar Wilde Reclaimed.' (Tickets for the evening which begins with a sherry reception, hosted by the Oscar Wilde Society, are £25)

Saturday 1st June offers a full day's programme, starting at 9.45 a.m.with a Portora Morning which includes a tour of the historic school by headmaster Richard Bennett, a lecture on 'The Irish Forebears of Oscar Wilde' by Professor Davis Coakley, author of The Importance of Being Irish and a talk 'Forgotten Schooldays' by Project Oscar Wilde Chairperson, Heather White. (Tickets for the Portora Morning £10).

After a morning of literary discourse, the festival visitor will bein need of some refreshment and the award-winning Oscar’s Restaurant in Enniskillen is offering a special four-course lunch at £12 per head (bookings in advance only through Oscar's Restaurant).

At 2.30 p.m on the Saturday afternoon of the Festival the Cole Monument at the Forthill, which is said to have inspired Wilde to write The Happy Prince fairy tale, sets the scene for Dublin actor, Michael James Ford's interactive interpretation of the Wildean Fairy Tale with local primary school children in period attire. (Admission forthe Happy Prince Finale is free). Following this performance, prizes will be presented to the winners of 'The Happy Prince' Art Competition for Primary School Children which has been organised by Project Oscar Wilde.

At 4 p.m. on Saturday 1st June Glynis Casson, granddaughter of Dame Sybil Thorndike, will give a performance of 'Osca rand the Sphinx' in the stately surroundings of Castlecoole. (Ticketsfor this event are £5).

The evening is rounded off by a Festival Gala Evening at the ArdhowenTheatre when patrons are invited to enter into the fun of the occasion by dressing up in Victorian/formal attire in honour of Oscar Wilde, the quintessential London dandy. Starting with a buffet supper inthe Theatre Bar at 7.00 p.m., the evening will feature a Gala performanceof 'Wilde' by the Wilde Goose Theatre Company. (Tickets £15 available only from the Ardhowen Box Office Tel: 028 66 325440).

Sunday 2nd June sees a return to Portora Royal School for a Poetry Reading at Portora morning which commences with coffee and features Glynis Casson and Michael James Ford reading extracts from some of Wilde's best known works (De Profundis, The Ballad of Reading Gaol, the 'handbag' scene from The Importance of Being Earnest) in the School's Stone Hall. It was here that young Oscar Wilde would entertain his friends with his extraordinary powers of storytelling. The Festival ends with a Buffet Receptionat the School. (Tickets £15).

Aside from the main programme, the Festival will also include exhibitions, music sessions, town tours and a cruise of the lakelands. Exhibitions include 'The Selfish Giant and the Flower Garden', Enniskillen Castle; 'Oscar Wilde Book Exhibition', Enniskillen Library; and ‘Victorian Footwear’, J.J. Sloans.

Festival 'Craic' features a series of Jazz and Blues performances at Blake's of The Hollow, 'Live' music at The Horseshoe Bar and Wilde Nights at The Crow’s Nest. Plus live music in the Diamond each afternoon, face-paintinng and balloon modelling, Wildean quotations and Victoriandisplays.

Ticket bookings can be made by post to Project Oscar Wilde on completion of the Brochure Postal Booking Form. To obtain your Brochure telephone: Project Oscar Wilde 028 686 31787. Because of the historic nature of many of the Festival venues, seating capacity is limited and early booking is advised.

Thursday’s launch date also sees the publication of three new workson Oscar Wilde, by Project Oscar Wilde Chairperson, Heather White. Forgotten Schooldays - an account of Oscar's sojourn in Enniskillen which reveals new and unpublished information relating to this period of his life; Wildefire - an investigation into the shadowy lives of Oscar’s two half-sisters who were burnt to death in a crinoline fire in County Monaghan; and A Wilde Family, a short account of Oscar Wilde’s Dublin family which had more than its fair share of intrigue, scandal and tragedy.

For further information, contact: Heather White, Project Oscar Wilde. Tel: 028 686 31787

Note: The telephone numbers are Northern Ireland ones, and must be prefixed from outside the United Kindom by the UK 44.

3. Film

The Importance of being Earnest

Karen Rosenberg writes 'I have updated my site with the publicity stills, a link to the trailer and numerous screen captures from that trailer. As my site has been regularly pillaged by other websites, I've instituted certain new controls to prevent downloading.

'You may find this either amusing or sad (I subscribe to the latter) that the official publicity information from Miramax continually refers to the two characters as assuming the name Earnest instead of Ernest.

http://www.miramax.com/importanceofbeingernest/index.html

'One wonders how Miramax can publicize a film it so obviously does notunderstand. Plus Gwendolen's name is misspelled as well. [As indeed is Algernon's, as MonTcrieff - Ed.]

'Finally, I have added a link to your OSCHOLARS site on my page. I will be extremely interested in reading how your group reacts to the film.'

We are especially grateful to Ms Rosenberg for this last point, and we remind readers that the new JISCmail correspondence pages are now open. Her website is http://www.spring.net/karenr/mdbro/earnest.html

4. Wilde on the Curriculum

Irene Gilsenan-Nordin (University College, Dalarna, Sweden), writes à propos 'being talked about', 'My colleague Tore Nilsson in linguistics thought it was a good example of the use of passive so he used the sentence as a practical example in his translation class.' For the translation, click here.

5. Work in Progress

Becky Chaplain (University of Staffordshire) writes 'I am a third year student, currently writing an assignment concerned with the impact that the Oscar Wilde trials had on social and political thought. I would be very grateful for any feed back on this topic.' Becky Chaplain beckno7@yahoo.co.uk

Tine Englebert (University of Ghent) writes 'I want to inform you that I prepare a doctoral thesis at the University of Ghent. The subject is: "The discrepancy of the female protagonists in the work of Oscar Wilde at one end and in a number of libretti based on the work of Wilde at the other end". Especially those operas where the female characters fulfil a major role are of great importance for my study.

The section "Mad, scarlet music" looks very interesting to me. I would like to come in touch with other researchers interested in musical adaptationsof the work of Wilde.

Tine Englebert, Posthoornstraat 3, B-9050 Gent, Belgium, Tel. ++32(0)92313364. e-mail tine-englebert@freegates.be

6. Broadcasts

We know of no broadcasts by subscribers in April. Trevor Fisher has kindly pointed out that Spendthrift of Genius, the documentary on Wilde by Sean O Mordha, originally made for RTÉ, was televised in England on 17th March. We again record our frustration at the apparent impossibility of getting advance notice of broadcasts.

III. THE CRITIC AS CRITIC.

We hope to carry at least one review in each issue.

1. Wilde in Sydney.

Penny Gay

Review of Gross Indecency: The Three Trialsof Oscar Wilde, by Moises Kaufman; and Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest (a prison fantasy, concept by Barry Lowe)

New Theatre, Newtown, Sydney, February 14-March 23, 2002

Sydney's venerable left-wing theatre, the New (founded in 1932), hosted this pair of plays for the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, a massive annual cultural festival that culminates in a Saturday-night parade of floats and marching groups, and the world's biggest gay party. 'The love that dare not speak its name' now contributes a not inconsiderable slice to the city's tourist income, and a great deal of cachet to the imageof this ex-convict settlement as a sophisticated world centre. Wilde's wit and high campery find a ready echo in Australians' penchant for irony and their particular delight in deconstructing gender cliches through the theatricality of cross-dressing, which sometimes seems almost a national pastime.

Notwithstanding this relatively long and proud history of gay liberation, it was particularly poignant to be watching Gross Indecency in the week following an attack by a Government

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