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A review by phileasfogg
Oscar Wilde by Frank Harris, George Bernard Shaw
4.0
This is a fairly thinly sketched biography wrapped around a memoir of the author's friendship with Wilde, concentrating especially on his trials, imprisonment and decline. Its great strength is the way it brings Wilde to life in remembered conversations, capturing the flavour of his conversation, which Harris and apparently Wilde considered to be Wilde's greatest art. It is also very frank, for the time of publication, about Wilde's private life, though Harris's open-mindedness is offset by some rather tedious passages in which he tries to persuade Oscar to go straight.
Harris has a reputation as an unreliable narrator of his own life, but I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. The more I read, the more I began to feel pangs of scepticism. At times, Harris represents himself as the hero of Wilde's life, trying desperately but in vain to save his weak-willed friend from folly, excess and indolence.
I had only a very basic understanding of Wilde's life before reading this. Despite my occasional scepticism I feel I now know a lot more about it. Yet I still feel the need for verification by a more trusted source: the Richard Ellmann biography seems to be the 'standard'. So I recommend this book not so much as a reliable account of the life, but as a probably good record of what it was like to know and talk to Wilde.
Harris has a reputation as an unreliable narrator of his own life, but I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. The more I read, the more I began to feel pangs of scepticism. At times, Harris represents himself as the hero of Wilde's life, trying desperately but in vain to save his weak-willed friend from folly, excess and indolence.
I had only a very basic understanding of Wilde's life before reading this. Despite my occasional scepticism I feel I now know a lot more about it. Yet I still feel the need for verification by a more trusted source: the Richard Ellmann biography seems to be the 'standard'. So I recommend this book not so much as a reliable account of the life, but as a probably good record of what it was like to know and talk to Wilde.