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Article: Church and Stage in Victorian England.(Review)
- Article from:
- The Modern Language Review
- Article date:
- April 1, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 Modern Humanities Research Association. 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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Church and Stage in Victorian England. By RICHARD FOULKES. Cambridge, New York, and Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. 1997. xiv + 263 pp. 37.50 [pounds sterling]; $59.95.
When on 19 May 1897, Oscar Wilde emerged from prison after a two year sentence, a fifty-year-old clergyman called the Revd Steward Headlam was waiting for him at the gate. During the playwright's trial for sodomy, Headlam had stood half his bail. He was now to give him hospitality in his house for several days, during which Wilde confided, 'I look on all of the religions as colleges in a great university. Roman Catholicism is the most romantic of them'. As an Anglican parson, Headlam manifestly ...