Oscar Wilde: Art and Morality by Stuart Mason

About Oscar Wilde: Art and Morality by Stuart Mason

“Who can help laughing when an ordinary journalist seriously proposes to limit the subject-matter at the disposal of the artist?” “We are dominated by journalism.... Journalism governs for ever and ever.”[/i] One of the nastiest of the British tabloids was founded a year too late to join in the moral panic generated to accompany Oscar Wilde’s court appearances in 1895. Yet there was no shortage of hypocritical journalists posing as moral arbiters to the nation, then as now. This compendium work - skillfully assembled by the editor, Stuart Mason - ends with transcript of Wilde’s first appearance in the Old Bailey, when he was cross-examined on the alleged immorality of his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. The disastrous outcome of these trials provides an ironic conclusion to the earlier knockabout exchanges between Oscar and his reviewers. In these he is at his flamboyant best, revelling in the publicity he pretends to disdain. His brave performances in the dock did nothing, however, to save him from hard labour, the treadmill and complete physical and moral breakdown which the law found it necessary to inflict on him. In contrast to the hacks and lawyers, two refreshingly open-minded Americans write perceptively about the novel, as does Walter Pater, the grand old man of Aestheticism. This solo Librivox project complements a new dramatised reading of The Picture of Dorian Gray, currently in preparation, featuring the present reader as Narrator. (Introduction by Martin Geeson)

Publisher

Oscar Wilde

Category

arts

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

2 Jun 2026

Latest episode

2 Jun 2026

Latest episodes

18 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   2 Jun 2026

   15 - The Romance of the Impossible. By Julian Hawthorne

2. 

   2 Jun 2026

   11 - Profuse and Perfervid

3. 

   2 Jun 2026

   08 - "The Daily Chronicle" on "Dorian Gray"

4. 

   2 Jun 2026

   13 - Punch on "Dorian Gray"

5. 

   2 Jun 2026

   03 - Mr Wilde's Bad Case

6. 

   2 Jun 2026

   05 - Mr Oscar Wilde's Defence

7. 

   2 Jun 2026

   09 - "The Scots Observer's" Review. Oscar Wilde's Replies

8. 

   2 Jun 2026

   16 - Walter Pater on "Dorian Gray"

9. 

   2 Jun 2026

   18 - Mr Robert Buchanan on Pagan Viciousness

10. 

    2 Jun 2026

    17 - The Morality of "Dorian Gray"

11. 

    2 Jun 2026

    10 - Further Correspondence

12. 

    2 Jun 2026

    12 - A Spiritualistic Review. By "NIZIDA"

13. 

    2 Jun 2026

    04 - Mr Oscar Wilde Again

14. 

    2 Jun 2026

    07 - Mr Oscar Wilde's Defence

15. 

    2 Jun 2026

    06 - Letter from "A London Editor"

16. 

    2 Jun 2026

    14 - A Revulsion from Realism. By Anne H. Wharton

17. 

    2 Jun 2026

    01 - Art and Morality

18. 

    2 Jun 2026

    02 - A Study in Puppydom

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