Oscar Wilde: A Certain Genius by Barbara Belford

Author:Barbara Belford [Belford, Barbara]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Non-Fiction, Biography
ISBN: 9780679457343
Amazon: 081299261X
Goodreads: 12430227
Publisher: Random House
Published: 1999-12-31T11:00:00+00:00

By the end of 1891, Wilde could look back at a year of successes and surprises. He had found Hyacinth in Lord Alfred Douglas, published his first novel, written a political treatise, and reincarnated The Duchess. Lawrence Barrett, the American actor-manager who had offered to produce the play in 1882, when it was optioned to Mary Anderson, was again interested in the blank verse drama. When Barrett wanted some revisions, Wilde visited him in Kreuznach in July 1889. (“The Rhine is of course tedious,” Wilde wrote Ross, “the vineyards are formal and dull, and as far as I can judge the inhabitants of Germany are American.”)

To clear the air after the Vera debacle, they changed the title to Guido Ferranti and withheld the name of the playwright. It opened at New York’s Broadway Theatre on January 26, 1891, and closed on February 14. Even so, Wilde was thrilled. He wrote George Alexander that Barrett thought the run “a huge success” and that he was going to include the play in his season. It was not unusual to introduce a play for a short run and then put it into repertoire, but that did not happen; it closed. It was never much of a secret that Wilde was the author. The Tribune’s William Winter called him “a practiced writer and a good one.”

In a swaggering mood, Wilde moved on to securing a London run. Henry Irving turned down the opportunity. But George Alexander, who had taken over the St. James’s Theatre to showcase English dramatists, considered the possibilities, though he decided he preferred to risk time and money on something fresh. Offering Wilde fifty pounds, he asked him to try a modern subject, to write about what he knew. In this way Alexander became midwife to the social comedies. When he faced difficulties writing, Wilde offered to return the advance, but Alexander encouraged him to keep trying. “I am not satisfied with myself or my work,” Wilde explained. “I can’t get a grip of the play yet: I can’t get my people real. The fact is I worked at it when I was not in the mood for work, and must first forget it, and then go back quite fresh to it. I am very sorry, but artistic work can’t be done unless one is in the mood; certainly my work can’t. Sometimes I spend months over a thing, and don’t do any good; at other times I write a thing in a fortnight.”

A summer visit to the Lake District near Lake Windermere helped Wilde break through. In October, Alexander’s patience was rewarded when he listened to Wilde read A Good Woman, later titled Lady Windermere’s Fan. Realizing that the play would be a hit, Alexander offered to buy it outright for a thousand pounds. In one of Wilde’s more astute business negotiations, he refused and asked for a percentage, which brought him several thousand more.

The witticisms in Lady Windermere’s Fan surpassed any comedy since Sheridan; Wilde’s use of sparkling dialogue to uncover character and conflict set him apart from the probing conversations of Ibsen.

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