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Article: Oscar Wilde's Secret Life.(The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde)(Book Review)
- Article from:
- Contemporary Review
- Article date:
- June 1, 2004
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 Contemporary Review Company Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde. Neil McKenna. Century. [pounds sterling]20.00. 535 pages. ISBN 0-7126-6986-8.
The circumloquant litterae Oscariensis are, by any count, wildly in excess: the shelf bows beneath the bulky figure. Is Mr McKenna's hefty, post-Ellmann 535-pager de trop? I think, warts and all, not. The theory it vaunts, Wilde, the political pawn, playing official sacrificial ram to the salvation of Rosebery and Drumlanrig is by no means novel. Neither, though long ago burked, has it ceased to breathe. But it is not here, or anywhere else, neatly, geometrically as it were, a proposition to be tagged quod erat demonstrandum.
Mr. McKenna's ...