Tag: oxford

Article

The Spirit Lamp

Oscar Wilde Blog5 Comments

THE SPIRIT LAMP
“The Desiderata of Collectors”

The Spirit Lamp was an Oxford University magazine of the 1890s described by the Pall Mall Gazette at the time as “free from the narrowness and banality which mark the greater part of English university literature and has a pleasing air of cultured bohemianism.”1

The magazine ran to 15 issues in total and became associated with Oscar Wilde—particularly the last six which were edited by Alfred Douglas during whose tenure the “cultured bohemianism” evolved into decadent homoeroticism.

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Article

Double Take II

Oscar Wilde Blog7 Comments

The Hills & Saunders Photographs
of Oscar Wilde and Friends

The current exhibition of Oscar Wilde at Magdalen College prompts me to extend an idea begun last year in an article titled Double Take—in which I featured two similar photographs by Hills & Saunders of Oscar Wilde and his fellow students at Magdalen.

That article highlighted only one of the series; now we take a look at the other known examples.

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Article

Double Take

Oscar Wilde Blog12 Comments
—Another Photo Mystery—

You have probably seen both of these photographs on separate occasions over the years, and, if you’re like me, thought you had been looking at the same one—perhaps because Oscar looks about same in each.

But when they are viewed together it becomes clear they are not the same photograph. Everyone has moved slightly, Oscar perhaps the least. It is clear these are different pictures.

The photo on the left can be found in Ellmann (1987)—and, as far as I can see, nowhere else. The one on the right is only slightly more common, and can be found occasionally online, but rarely, if ever, in books.

Despite the relative rarity of these images, there is nothing mysterious about their production. Photographs were often taken in pairs like this, and Oscar Wilde became no stranger to them (see features below).

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