The Annotated Prison Writings of Oscar Wilde

Author:   Oscar Wilde ,  Nicholas Frankel
Publisher:   Harvard University Press
Edition:   Annotated edition
ISBN:  

9780674984387


Pages:   370
Publication Date:   14 May 2018
Format:   Paperback
Availability:   Available To Order   Availability explained
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The Annotated Prison Writings of Oscar Wilde


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Overview

""And I? May I say nothing, my lord?"" With these words, Oscar Wilde's courtroom trials came to a close. The lord in question, High Court justice Sir Alfred Wills, sent Wilde to the cells, sentenced to two years in prison with hard labor for the crime of ""gross indecency"" with other men. As cries of ""shame"" emanated from the gallery, the convicted aesthete was roundly silenced. But he did not remain so. Behind bars and in the period immediately after his release, Wilde wrote two of his most powerful works-the long autobiographical letter De Profundis and an expansive best-selling poem, The Ballad of Reading Gaol. In The Annotated Prison Writings of Oscar Wilde, Nicholas Frankel collects these and other prison writings, accompanied by historical illustrations and his rich facing-page annotations. As Frankel shows, Wilde experienced prison conditions designed to break even the toughest spirit, and yet his writings from this period display an imaginative and verbal brilliance left largely intact. Wilde also remained politically steadfast, determined that his writings should inspire improvements to Victorian England's grotesque regimes of punishment. But while his reformist impulse spoke to his moment, Wilde also wrote for eternity. At once a savage indictment of the society that jailed him and a moving testimony to private sufferings, Wilde's prison writings-illuminated by Frankel's extensive notes-reveal a very different man from the famous dandy and aesthete who shocked and amused the English-speaking world.

Full Product Details

Author:   Oscar Wilde ,  Nicholas Frankel
Publisher:   Harvard University Press
Imprint:   Harvard University Press
Edition:   Annotated edition
ISBN:  

9780674984387


ISBN 10:   0674984382
Pages:   370
Publication Date:   14 May 2018
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Available To Order   Availability explained
We have confirmation that this item is in stock with the supplier. It will be ordered in for you and dispatched immediately.

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Reviews

Frankel provides a valuable service in comprehensively editing these works for a fresh generation of readers.--Joseph Bristow, University of California, Los Angeles De Profundis and The Ballad of Reading Gaol are canonical Victorian literature, and Frankel's precise and well-informed notes will raise readers' awareness of Wilde's thinking on morality, crime, religion, sexuality, aesthetics, and prison reform.--Ellis Hanson, Cornell University


Author Information

Nicholas Frankel has published many books about Oscar Wilde, including Oscar Wilde: The Unrepentant Years, The Short Stories of Oscar Wilde, The Annotated Prison Writings of Oscar Wilde, The Invention of Oscar Wilde, and The Picture of Dorian Gray: An Annotated, Uncensored Edition. He is Professor of English at Virginia Commonwealth University.

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