Category: Article

Article

The Kelly Sketch 1882

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The James E. Kelly sketch of Oscar Wilde

One of the reasons Oscar Wilde accepted the invitation to lecture in North America was the opportunity it gave him to meet people. In reality, this meant meeting people who might be able to help him achieve the fame he desired.

His manager, Colonel W. F. Morse, was ideally suited to oversee the venture. As a former military man turned theatrical manager he had a tactical grasp of public relations. One of the first things he did was to arrange a photo session for Wilde with the renowned portraitist Napoleon Sarony.

But Morse also needed a sketch of Wilde for promotional purposes, announcements, and the like. For this task he commissioned a New York artist named James E. Kelly.1

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Oscar Wilde on 9/11

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Watch the Conversation: Original Broadcast on September 16, 2026

To mark the 25th anniversary of 9/11, Christine Nelson, in conversation with Philip Palmer, recalls one of the British Library’s most significant transatlantic partnerships: the exhibition Oscar Wilde: A Life in Six Acts, which originated in London and opened at the Morgan Library in New York in September 2001.

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Article

Florence Balcombe

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Portrait head of Florence, Mrs Bram Stoker.
Pencil on paper. Edward Burne-Jones c. 1888.
(credit: Bram Stoker Estate)

Oscar Wilde’s early romance and break-up with Florence Balcombe are well documented; as is her subsequent marriage to Bram Stoker.

Less well known, and under-appreciated for their relevance, are two compositions of regret and resignation found side-by-side in Oscar Wilde’s Poems (1881).

The two poems are titled “Her Voice” and “My Voice” that Wilde casts respectively to show the male and female attitude towards the end of a relationship.

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Article

The Long Good Morning

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A vintage poster for Oscar Wilde's play 'The Importance of Being Earnest,' featuring colorful illustrations and text about the show's details, including cast members and performance date.

Oscar Wilde’s play, The Importance Of Being Earnest begins with two memorable scenes. The first is Algernon’s and Jack’s discussion about Bunbury, which they conduct while carelessly eating the sandwiches and bread & butter intended for Lady Bracknell and her daughter Gwendolen. The second is Lady Bracknell’s famous “handbag” interview with Jack who wishes to marry Gwendolen.

The question is: does Act I take place in the morning or in the afternoon?

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Article

Basil Gray

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A historical portrait of a man in formal attire, captioned 'BASIL GRAY' with the phrase 'Preserving Anonymity at Père Lachaise.'

The recent flurry of fictitious Basils would not be complete without mention of one more: a certain Basil Gray.

And as with the previous Basils, who begin here, the name clearly alludes to the character of Basil Hallward in Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray.

So where does this Basil fit into the Wilde story?

Curiously, Basil Gray, or to give him his title, Captain Basil Gray, appears in the Wilde story as an amusing aside to an otherwise solemn occasion at Père Lachaise Cemetery.

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Article

Basil Ward

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If you are new to the myth of Basil Ward see my previous articles:
Basil Hallward and Faulty Basil

So far in our investigation of Basil Ward we have reached A. R. Keller & Co. and its uniform collection The Writings of Oscar Wilde (1907).

This is where the Basil Ward story first appeared in book form. It seemed fair to pause at that point because previous biographers could reasonably have looked in Keller for his existence—although none did.

But the researcher’s mantra is to keep digging and the question remained: where did A. R. Keller & Co. get the story from?

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Article

Faulty Basil

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My recent article Basil Hallward showed how Charterhouse Press in the era of unauthorized publications added a preposterous preface to their 1904 edition of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture Of Dorian Gray.

To summarize: their idea with this so-called “Artist’s Preface” was to pass off the novel’s fictional painter, Basil Hallward, as a real person who in 1884 had known Wilde and a Radiant Youth—a “Dorian” prototype—and this meeting was supposedly the origin of Wilde’s novel released six years later.

The problem with the preface, apart from its implausibility, was that it would be slightly more plausible had it been written by someone other than the fictitional Basil Hallward.

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Article

Basil Hallward

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In Chapter XIII of Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray the painter, Basil Hallward, is brutally murdered by the still innocent-looking Dorian Gray whose “gracious and comely form he had so skilfully mirrored in his art”1 eighteen years earlier.

But Basil, creator as he was of Dorian’s parallel life, was a resourceful fellow, and he was not about to let the mere fact of a frenzied knife attack, fatal though it was, prevent him from conducting his own secondary existence.

And so it was that Basil Hallward reappeared in 1904. His mission? To write the preface to a new edition of the very book in which he had died.

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Article

Bonhams

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In my last blog post about a picture that was Not Oscar, I related the story of how an image purporting to show a young Wilde in an assembly of pupils at Portora Royal School, had to be withdrawn from an auction at Bonhams in 1998.

Merlin Holland explained the reasons for the removal in his recent book After Oscar (pp. 576-578), also confirming that the withdrawal was made immediately prior to the sale.

On account of this last fact, I was asked whether the late decision had left Bonhams time to amend the offering of the withdrawn items, or had the catalogue already been printed?

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