Making Oscar Wilde - Rilegato

Mendelssohn, Michèle

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0198802366 ISBN 13: 9780198802365

Casa editrice: OUP Oxford, 2018

Riassunto

Witty, inspiring, and charismatic, Oscar Wilde is one of the Greats of English literature. Today, his plays and stories are beloved around the world. But it was not always so. His afterlife has given him the legitimacy that life denied him. Making Oscar Wilde reveals the untold story of young Oscar's career in Victorian England and post-Civil War America. Set on two continents, it tracks a larger-than-life hero on an unforgettable adventure to make his name and gain international acclaim. 'Success is a science,' Wilde believed, 'if you have the conditions, you get the result.'

Combining new evidence and gripping cultural history, Michèle Mendelssohn dramatizes Wilde's rise, fall, and resurrection as part of a spectacular transatlantic pageant. With superb style and an instinct for story-telling, 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 ground-breaking revisionist history shows how Wilde's tumultuous early life embodies the story of the Victorian era as it tottered towards modernity. Riveting and original, MakingOscar Wilde is a masterful account of a life like no other.

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Recensione:

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, The Sunday Times)

Now that America has come to seem so unsettled and so strange, Michèle Mendelssohn's Making Oscar Wilde help us to become more alarmed. (Colm Tóibín, The Guardian)

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)

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)

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)

A stylish account of [Wilde's] tumultuous rise, fall and resurrection ... a hugely important and enjoyable book. (Mal Rogers, The Irish Post)

The story of Wilde's American tour has often been told before; but never like this. [...] Mendelssohn is the first critic to refute the triumphant self-serving spin put on the tour by both Wilde and his promoters. (Kate Hext, The Times Literary Supplement)

Fascinating. (The New Yorker)

Mendelssohn's scrupulous account humanizes Wilde. (Alexander C. Kafka, The Washington Post)

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)

L'autore:

Michèle Mendelssohn is a literary critic and cultural historian. She is Associate Professor of English Literature at Oxford University. She earned her doctorate from Cambridge University and was a Fulbright Scholar at Harvard University. Her previous books include Henry James, Oscar Wilde, and Aesthetic Culture and two co-edited collections of literary criticism, Alan Hollinghurst and Late Victorian Into Modern (shortlisted for the 2017 Modernist Studies Association Book Prize). She has published in The New York Times, The Guardian, African American Review, Journal of American Studies, Nineteenth Century Literature, and Victorian Literature and Culture.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: OUP Oxford
• Data di pubblicazione: 2018
• ISBN 10: 0198802366
• ISBN 13: 9780198802365
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 368