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topic: Book Issues > Did Oscar Wilde really write this?


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message 1: by Petra X (new)

1237196 http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44430...

I am quite familiar with Oscar Wilde but have never heard of this before. Given that I was taught Wilde in school that isn't surprising. The only possibly legitimate trace of it I can find is in the Worldcat with only one copy in the National Library of the Czech Republic. I myself think its a fake but who knows, Wilde was nothing if not an iconoclast.


message 2: by rivka, Volunteer Mod (new)

171430 It would seem so, although I wonder why I can't find anything about it in English. OTOH, the pseudonym cited in that article is indeed one Wilde used.

OTOOH, I kind of think it's actually someone else using Wilde as their pseudonym. I don't have any proof for that though.


834216 Supposedly, it was written by him under his (often used) pseudonym Sebastian Melmoth for the magazine/journal The Pearl. It was translated into Czech under his name, but may have never been republished in book form in English.

The data on this is fairly weak, but believable.


message 4: by Petra X (new)

1237196 I checked it on the Pearl, every issue except the 1879 Christmas supplement and it wasn't there. It would be unlikely to be there as the magazine published serials. The closest was Lady Pokingham or They All do It. Might be the same thing with a somewhat cruder name, I don't know.

Wasn't Melmoth the inspiration for the angel on Wilde's tomb?


message 5: by rivka, Volunteer Mod (new)

171430 The Czech wikipage claims that Lady Pokingham was the name it was later published under.


message 6: by Petra X (new)

1237196 Ok, same thing then. Its a bawdy, serialised story on a par with Fanny Hill.


message 7: by rivka, Volunteer Mod (new)

171430 ♪♫"To be smut it must be ut-
Terly without redeeming social importance"
♪♫


message 8: by Cait (new)

1005037 They acquitted your Aunt Hortense too, rivka? ;)


message 9: by rivka, Volunteer Mod (new)

171430 :D


message 10: by Kiwiria (new)

168347 "Who needs a hobby like tennis or philately? I've got a hobby: rereading Lady Chatterley."

(can't do the cool notes though)


message 11: by rivka, Volunteer Mod (last edited Dec 09, 2008 07:31AM) (new)

171430 (Google + copy-and-paste) ;)

Since they're already there, just copy-and-paste: ♪♫


message 12: by Kiwiria (new)

168347 ♪♫
Excellent! Thanks :)


message 13: by Sherry (new)

1217925 Teh Intermets
authors: multiple people

I laughed.

What do you want to do about this?


message 14: by rivka, Volunteer Mod (new)

171430 Definitely not a book. Gone, and gone.


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