THE OSCHOLARS
___________

Vol. IV

No. 11

Issue no 43: December 2007

For the Table of Contents, click | To hub page | To THE OSCHOLARS home page

Click     for the Editorial page of the current is sue of THE OSCHOLARS

PUBLICATIONS AND PAPERS

« Are there not books that can make us live more in one single hour than life can make us live in a score of shameful years? »

We hope where appropriate to review in future issues at least some of the books listed here. As always, we are happy to hear from anybody who would like to review; and we are always willing to consider for publication abstracts or précis of journal articles or published or unpublished doctoral theses.

As usual, names of subscribers to THE OSCHOLARS are printed in bold.

Books in French are covered more fully in our sister publication rue des beaux arts, the bimestrial bulletin of the French branch of The Oscar Wilde Society, which can be accessed via our hub page. This does not preclude reviews in THE OSCHOLARS.

Until this issue, we also included here a survey of Journals. Our continued reconstruction of our website has suggested a new free-standing page, and the survey will now be found as ‘The Rack & the Press’.

A list of recommended bookshops appears in our section ‘Some Sell and Others Buy’. If ordering, please mention THE OSCHOLARS as this helps ensure a flow of information.

Table of Contents: 1. Publications and papers on Oscar Wilde
On The Canterville Ghost
on De Profundis
on the ‘Fairy Tales'
on Teleny
on Oscar Wilde Complete
on Oscar Wilde and André Gide
on Oscar Wilde and Vincent O’Sullivan
on Oscar Wilde and Victorian Fiction
on Oscar Wilde and Cinders
on Oscar Wilde and Coffee
on Oscar Wilde and Plagiarism
on Oscar Wilde and Poison
on Oscar Wao

TABLE OF CONTENTS II : Books, Articles & Papers on the Period
on London (1)		on London (2)
on Octave Mirbeau		on Valancourt Books
Announcement from Taylor & Francis

PUBLICATIONS AND PAPERS ON OSCAR WILDE

Plagiarism

Oscar Wilde's Plagiarism: The Triumph of Art Over Ego by Florina Tufescu. Dublin: Irish Academic Press

'An immensely enjoyable read which wears its learning lightly. It might help to curb the scholarly paranoia about plagiarism and might be read well beyond the academy.' Professor Declan Kiberd, author of Irish Classics 'This book addresses the very controversial issue of Oscar Wilde's "plagiarism" head-on, sifts through the evidence, fully contextualises it inthe literary practices of decadent writers of the 1890s, and proposes a new theory to account for it.' Dr Jarlath Killeen, Trinity College Dublin 'Florina Tufescu's book makes us rethink romanticism and classicism as well as plagiarism. Beginning with the frequent historical allegations of Wilde's plagiaristic techniques, Tufescu studies the modern French and transatlantic roots of acknowledged and unacknowledged intertextuality, and then analyzes romantic originality and classical borrowing. She argues ultimately for the integrity of classical borrowing in literary tradition. The most theoretically sophisticated study of plagiarism since Paul Saint-Amour's TheCopywrights, the book includes sections on intellectual property and copyright of use in the classroom and on the internet.' Regenia Gagnier, University of Exeter

Florina Tufescu is an Associate Editor of THE OSCHOLARS.

Oscar Wilde as a Character in Victorian Fiction

The publication for 27th November of Oscar Wilde as a Character in Victorian Fiction by Angela Kingston, our Australian Associate Editor (New York: Palgrave) is now given as 26th December.

This book documents how Oscar Wilde was appropriated as a fictional character by no less than thirty-two of his contemporaries. Focusing on Wilde’s relationships with many of these writers, Kingston examines and critiques ‘Wildean’ portraits by such celebrated authors as Joseph Conrad, Arthur Conan Doyle, Henry James, George Bernard Shaw and Bram Stoker, as well as some lesser-known writers. Many fascinating, little-known biographical and literary connections are revealed. While this work will be of significant interest to scholars of Wilde, it is also written in a clear, accessible style which will appeal to the non-academic reader with a general interest in Wilde or the late Victorian period.

‘This book fills an important gap in the field. Kingston brings together a broad range of works that reflect Wilde's influence during his lifetime and well beyond.  Its genre of annotated-bibliography-as-narrative stands as engaged criticism, contributing greatly to our knowledge of both the artist as critic and critic as artist. This is not straightforward biography, but rigorous textual analysis that broadens our understanding of Wilde as author and cultural subject.’ -- Frederick Roden, University of Connecticut

Fairy Tales

We greatly welcome the publication of The Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde, by Jarlath Killeeen (Aldershot: Ashgate 20070. This is, remarkably, the first full length study of the ‘fairy tales’, and will be reviewed in THE OSCHOLARS by the Editor. 202pp, Hardback, ISBN 978-0756-5813-9. £50.

Sébastien Salbayre: ‘The language of decadent childhood in Oscar Wilde's tales’ has been published (19th September 2007) in La Revue du GRAAT Volume 2, n° 36: Histoires d'enfant, histoires d'enfance / Stories for children, histories of childhood (actes du colloque, Université François-Rabelais, 18th-19th November 2005, ed. Rosie Findlay and Sébastien Salbayre. Publisher : Presses universitaires François-Rabelais, Tours ISBN 978-2-86906-234-4.

"Death is a great price to pay for a red rose" Ästhetik, Ethik und Religion in den Märchen Oscar Wildes by Alexander Schimming has been published by B.O.D. ISBN 978-3-8364-4426-2, 116 pages, Paperback, CHF 81,00

Teleny; Gide

A new edition of Teleny appeared last year, published by the independent publishing house Mondial in New York. It is cautiously attributed to Anonymous, with ‘Oscar Wilde et al.’ added in parentheses. Printed on good quality paper, with a glossy soft cover, it is much enhanced by eight linocuts (black and white), by Uday K. Dhar, who, though born in England, lives in the United States . There is no critical apparatus save for a short blurb on the cover. The linocuts, somewhat in the style of German expressionism, can be purchased separately from the publisher, who maintains a website at www.mondialbooks.com. ISBN 1-59569-036-0. We will return to this edition in our Teleny special supplement, guest edited by John McRae, scheduled for Autumn 2008. Mondial also publish Recollections of Oscar Wilde by André Gide, Ernest La Jeunesse, and Franz Blei. ISBN: 9781595690814. 104pp. Paperback $13.85 Both these books can be ordered directly from Mondial @

The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde

The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde, Volume IV: Criticism: Historical Criticism, Intentions, The Soul of Man, edited by Josephine M. Guy, was published by Oxford University Press on 6th September 2007. £85.00 Hardback 702 pages. For more details, visit: www.oup.com/uk/catalogue?ci=9780198119616

Oscar Wao

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz (New York: Riverhead) was published on 6th September 2007. 352 pages. ISBN 9781594489587.T his is a sort of spin-off novel, and will be reviewed for THE OSCHOLARS by María DeGuzmán, Associate Professor of English & Comparative Literature and Director of Latina/o Studies, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is also available as an audiobook read by Jonathan Davis with Staci Snell (16 Hours; 13 CDs) 9780143142805

Aspects of Wilde

Callum James Books announce that they will be reprinting Vincent O’Sullivan’s Aspects of Wilde. We shall be reviewing this, and in future, paying more attention to the Victorian and Edwardian reprints from this small, independent publisher, which has also republished A.J.A. Symons’ Notes on Oscar Wilde. Orders can be placed at @

Oscar Wilde ou les cendres de la gloire

Editions Mengès announced the publication (27th November) of Oscar Wilde ou les cendres de la gloire by Frédéric Ferney. 220 pages, 200 illustrations ; soft cover 17.5 x 24.5 ISBN : 978-2-85620-479-5. 25 €

Frédéric Ferney was born in 1951, and presents a books programme Le Bateau Livre on the television channel France 5 every Sunday. He is a novelist, dramatic critic, journalist and presenter. He is the author of La Comédie Littéraire, of l'Éloge de la France immobile, of Aragon, la seule façon d'exister and of Le dernier amour de monsieur M.

Coffee with Oscar Wilde

Coffee with Oscar Wilde by Merlin Holland with a foreword by Simon Callow (144 pages) was published by Duncan Baird in September. The publisher’s description runs Oscar Wilde’s own grandson, with the help of actor and author Simon Callow—who has performed Wilde’s work on stage—capture the essence of this wittiest of all playwrights. Set in Paris, where he fled after the scandalous trial that revealed his homosexuality, Wilde chats about language, his mother (an esteemed Irish folklorist), transforming his life into a work of art (“My great tragedy is that I put my genius into my life—and only my talent into my work”), his time in prison, his concept of morality, and why he thinks “in life, style, not sincerity, is essential.” This is reviewed in ‘The Critic as Critic’ by Dr Marie-Luise Kohlke, University of Swansea.

De Profundis; The Canterville Ghost

The publishing house Txalaparta recently published De Profundis, translated into Basque by Aitor Arana.

Photo: ©txalaparta.com

A new German edition of The Canterville Ghost has been published (as ‘Das Gespenst von Canterville’). The translation is by Ernst Sander, and it is illustrated by Inge Brüx with an Afterword by Hans-Christian Oeser. Stuttgart: Philipp Reclam jun

‘Poison, Passion, and Personality’

‘Wilde's Renaissance: Poison, Passion, and Personality’ by Yvonne Ivory has been published in Victorian Literature and Culture, Volume 35, Issue 02, September 2007, pp 517-536.
Published online by Cambridge University Press 29th June 2007. The abstract is available on line.

Dorian Gray

Andrew Elfenbein is the editor of a new edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray. Longman Cultural Editions. New York: Longman, 2007

BOOKS, ARTICLES & PAPERS OF GENERAL FIN-DE-SIÈCLE INTEREST

Representations of London

Lawrence Phillips (ed.): A Mighty Mass of Brick and Smoke, Victorian and Edwardian Representations of London. Amsterdam/New York, NY,: Rodopi, 2007. 306 pp. Hb: 978-90-420-2290-4€ 62 / US$ 87. Series: DQR Studies in Literature.

Of all eras of London’s history, the Victorian and Edwardian city continues to stimulate the literary, visual, and popular imaginations like no other. This collection explores the unique relationship between the literary, and more broadly, artistic imagination and experience of the Victorian and Edwardian city. It includes some major figures such as Wordsworth, Dickens, and James, but also other writers and artists who are all but forgotten. Bringing together some of the leading scholars working on representations of Victorian and Edwardian London, this collection will be of interest to scholars, researchers and students working on literary London and more broadly the urban in the nineteenth- and early twentieth-centuries. This will be reviewed for THE OSCHOLARS by Professor John Batchelor, University of Newcastle, England.

Contents

1. Lawrence Phillips: Introduction: A Mighty Mass of Brick and Smoke	2. L.J. Nicoletti: Morbid Topographies: Placing Suicide in Victorian London
3. Efraim Sicher: The ‘Attraction of Repulsion’: Dickens, Modernity, and Representation	4. Adam Hansen: Exhibiting Vagrancy, 1851: Victorian London and the ‘Vagabond Savage’
5. David Skilton: ‘When Dreams are Coming’: Wordsworth, Jefferies and Visions of the London Crowd	6. Philip Tew: James Thomson’s London: Beyond the Apocalyptic Vision of the City
7. Keith Wilson: Surveying Victorian and Edwardian Londoners: George R. Sims’ Living London	8. Dehn Gilmore: Rehearsals, Refutations, Representation: Gissing’s New Grub Street and the Problem of an Urban Realism
9. Julian Wolfreys: The Hieroglyphic Other: The Beetle, London, and the Abyssal Subject	10 Alan Robinson: Socio-Spatial Relations in Henry James’ The Wings of the Dove
11. Lawrence Phillips: Jack London and the East End: Socialism, Imperialism and the Bourgeois Ethnographer	12. Anne Witchard: Thomas Burke: Son of London
13. Samantha Matthews: The London Necropolis: Suburban Cemeteries and the Necropolitan Imaginary	Notes on Contributors – Index

London, Literature, and Art 1870-1914

Conceiving the City: London, Literature, and Art 1870-1914 by Nicholas Freeman has been published by Oxford University Press. Dr Freeman’s article ‘Wilde's Edwardian Afterlife: Somerset Maugham, Aleister Crowley, and The Magician’ is announced as a forthcoming publication in Literature & History 2007

This will be reviewed for THE OSCHOLARS by Professor John Batchelor, University of Newcastle, England

Octave Mirbeau

Pierre Michel (Société Octave Mirbeau) writes

 Chers collègues,

 J'ai le plaisir de vous informer de la parution, à l'occasion du très riche et passionnant colloque Octave Mirbeau de Strasbourg, d'un joli petit volume illustré intitulé Un aller simple pour l'Octavie. Il s'agit d'un ensemble de textes recueillis par Kinda Mubaideen, de l'université de Strasbourg, et inspirés par La 628-E8 d'Octave Mirbeau. Ils sont rédigés par des participants, de toutes nationalités, aux ateliers d'écriture animés par Kinda Mubaideen,  à Strasbourg et à Sarajevo (où ont collaboré amicalement des Bosniaques, des Serbes et des Croates). L'artiste strasbourgeois Lolo Wagner en a assuré les nombreuses illustrations (36 en tout).

En même temps qu'un hommage à Mirbeau et à sa 628-E8, il s'agit d'un travail qui contribue à rapprocher les peuples et les cultures, conformémant au voeu le plus cher de l'imprécateur au coeur fidèle. Et quel bel hommage, aussi, à la langue et à la littérature françaises de la part d'étudiants et traducteurs étrangers ! 

Ce beau petit volume illustré, édité par la Société Octave Mirbeau, peut être commandé à la Société Mirbeau, 10 bis rue André Gautier, 49000 - ANGERS.
Son prix est de 10 euros franco. 

New from Valancourt

James D Jenkins and Valancourt Books announce their latest publications of new scholarly editions of Victorian-era texts.

Round the Red Lamp and Other Medical Writings by Arthur Conan Doyle, edited by Robert Darby.  Includes the 1894 short story collection Round the Red Lamp, plus three previously uncollected stories and a generous selection of Dr. Doyle's nonfiction medical writings.

The Rose and the Key (1871) by J. Sheridan Le Fanu, edited by Frances Chiu.  Features a groundbreaking new introduction, arguing for reconsideration of Le Fanu's politics and a reading of the novel as a commentary on Anglo-Irish tensions; this edition is the first to reprint the original serialized text of the novel.

Mystery of the Sea (1902) by Bram Stoker, edited by Carol A. Senf.

The Garden God (1905) by Forrest Reid, edited by Michael Matthew Kaylor.  A meticulous scholarly edition of Reid's controversial novel of love between two schoolboys.  Dedicated to Henry James, Reid's idol, the book was condemned by James, who never spoke to Reid again.

The King's Assegai, The Weird of Deadly Hollow, and Renshaw Fanning's Quest by Bertram Mitford, edited by Gerald Monsman.  Three 1890s adventure novels dealing with life in South Africa before and after British colonization.

Nada the Lily (1892) by H. Rider Haggard, edited by Gerald Monsman.  Haggard's adventure/romance/fantasy set among the Zulus, before British colonization.

More information on these and other titles can be found on the website at http://www.valancourtbooks.com, along with information for those interested in contributing an introduction for a future edition.

Announcement from Taylor & Francis - Arts & Humanities Collection

The Arts & Humanities Collection features online content published by Routledge between 1997 and the present day. 93 journal titles are available to explore online via the easily searchable informaworldT platform.  28 journals are listed in Thomson Scientific's Arts & Humanities Citation Index and Social Sciences Citation Index. The Arts & Humanities Collection covers History, Literature, Language & Linguistics, Music, Philosophy, Religion, Theatre & Performance and Visual Arts.

The Arts & Humanities Collection includes:

Contemporary British History - an iFirst title giving immediate access to the latest key research articles

Prestigious titles such as Slavery & Abolition, Atlantic Studies and Social History

Heritage titles such as Journal of Imperial & Commonwealth History - now in its 34th year of publication

Journals published in association with prominent societies such as Intellectual History Review - the official journal of the International Society for Intellectual History

For more information on the Arts & Humanities Collection, please visit www.informaworld.com/librarians_artscollection

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