Awards
Winner 1989 - Pulitzer Prize
Winner 1988 - National Book Critics Circle Awards
Synopses & Reviews
The biography sensitive to the tragic pattern of the story of a great subject: Oscar Wilde - psychologically and sexually complicated, enormously quotable, central to a alluring cultural world and someone whose life assumed an unbearably dramatic shape.
Review
"Ellmann's sympathetic retelling of Wilde's story, in steadier focus than we've heard it before, is more convincing than his hyperbolic literary judgments." Walter Clemons, Newsweek
Review
"All in all, Wilde provides little occasion for Ellmann's formidable critical apparatus....[Ellmann] can do nothing more with Wilde than fit him into a historical context and tell, yet again, the profane story....[He] does straighten out earlier versions....What is most interesting in Ellmann's account is the intellectual progress of Wilde....[His] literary criticism is better than his telling of the oft-told tale." Gore Vidal, The Times Literary Supplement
Review
"The biography will further distinguish Ellman's illustrious career...it should give impetus to a view...that Wilde was, after all, a writer of enormous significance and originality." New York Times Book Review
Review
"Ellmann's warm-hearted, witty, meticulously constructed life of Oscar Wilde {is} a model biography in every respect. Wilde's life epitomises the classic formula for a tragic history, the man who, by hubris, falls from greatness. In Mr Ellmann's hands, the story becomes as compelling as fiction while never deviating from the facts. Humour and elegance illuminate the accounts of Wilde's family, his friends and the enemies he earned by his refusal to be prudent....The history of Wilde's downfall has never been more finely told." Elaine Mersol, The Economist
Synopsis
Winner of both the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize, Oscar Wilde is the definitive biography of the tortured poet and playwright and the last book by renowned biographer and literary critic Richard Ellmann. Ellmann dedicated two decades to the research and writing of this biography, resulting in a complex and richly detailed portrait of Oscar Wilde. Ellman captures the wit, creativity, and charm of the psychologically and sexually complicated writer, as well as the darker aspects of his personality and life. Covering everything from Wilde's rise as a young literary talent to his eventual imprisonment and death in exile with exquisite detail, Ellmann's fascinating account of Wilde's life and work is a resounding triumph.
Description
Hailed as a masterpiece, Ellmann's biography of Oscar Wilde has been acclaimed as a perfect marriage of biographer and subject. With precision and wit and sensitive to the tragic pattern of the story, it brings Wilde to life as never before. 32 pages of photos