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Built of Books: How Reading Defined the Life of Oscar Wilde

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When still in school Thomas Wright resolved to read all the books Oscar Wilde had read, and although he admits at the end of this book that he didn't succeed, he did read enough of them to write this fascinating account of Oscar Wilde's life through Wilde's abiding passion, books.

Wright's book opens with the tragic sale of Wilde's library to pay his debts following his imprisonment in 1895 and then moves on to give an account of his upbringing in Dublin with the Celtic folk tales his mother loved. In Dublin's Trinity College Wilde met his mentor in Greek studies, Professor Mahaffy, and in Trinity and Oxford's Magdalen College, Wilde expanded his reading into the classics of the Latin and Greek civilizations, such as Livy, Euripides and Homer. From there Wright takes us through Wilde settling in London, his marriage in 1883, home life, and fine library in Tite Street, laid out and decorated to Wilde's exacting aesthetic requirements.

In 1891 Wilde met Lord Alfred Douglas and their mutual searches for rentboys on the streets near London's House of Commons began. Their relationship revolted Bosie's father, the volatile and unstable Lord Queensbury, and when Queensbury publicly accused Wilde of sodomy Wilde, at Bosie's prompting, prosecuted Queensbury for criminal libel. It was a fatal mistake. Queensbury's counsel, Wilde's fellow Dubliner and future leader of Ulster Unionism, Edward Carson, cleverly trapped Wilde in his own eloquence and allowed him incriminate himself. Not only did Wilde's prosecution collapse but Wilde found himself being prosecuted for his homosexuality. He was convicted and Wright recounts Wilde's terrible imprisonment and concludes his story with Wilde's final years, the collapse of his creative drive and lonely death in Paris surrounded by his last few hundred books, including works by Balzac, Huysmans, and Flaubert's 'The Temptation of Saint Anthony.'

The story is entertainingly told through the books Wilde was reading and writing about, from his favourites, such as Pater's `Studies in the History of the Renaissance', to the books he scornfully derided such as the now forgotten Harry Quilter's `Sententiae Artis' a book of bourgeois art criticism. Wright includes in his tale interesting accounts of Wilde's library, reading habits - Wilde's was a prodigious intelligence and his ability to read in Latin, Greek and numerous European languages impresses no less than his ability to read a book in detail in a matter of minutes - book designs, favourite book shops and numerous other details of his bookish life which will rivet the attention of any bibliophile and give him many hours of entertaining reading and many ideas for further reading.

There's little to criticize in this book but at times the author's obvious enthusiasm gets the better of him and he offers conjectures on Wilde's life with little basis in fact, even going so far as to speculate, incredibly, that Wilde may have intended his downfall as a form of Greek tragedy.

In addition to Wright's own easy writing style, the book is laced with great lines from Wilde himself. What reader who has waded through the sickly sentimentality of Dickens will not erupt in laughter when he reads Wilde's comment `One must have a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell without laughing.' And, appropriately, the best line in the book is Wilde's, when he said, in reference to the Bible `When I think of all the harm that book has done, I despair of ever writing anything equal to it.'

Oscar Wilde is best known for his literary works, especially the Importance of Being Earnest, and, for his trouble with the law for his homosexual activities. In this book, we get to see how Wilde's life was shaped by books. The shaping started at home where his mother was a poet of high regard and his father was an accomplished surgeon and archeologist. This domestic makeup proved to be fruitful for Wilde as both parents exposed him to the classics, important contemporary works and, critically, Irish folk literature, which would come to heavily influence Wilde's work.

Wilde was precocious and was not afraid to flaunt it. He took first place in exams in college and loved to engage in circles where literary themes and the arts were a focus. He was what was known as an aesthete or someone who valued the meaning that art gives to life more than the detailed descriptions of reality, which were found to deprive life of its transcendent meanings. Wilde was also very much into playing the roles for which he wanted to be perceived. The author refers to him as a "dandy", apparently someone who dresses, speaks and engages the world from an artistic perspective.

Built of Books takes us through the various works and authors who influenced not only Wilde's literary output but also the way he actually lived his life. Author Wright contends that Wilde's affinity for younger men was engendered by the works of Plato and other early Greek authors whose culture idealized and encouraged relationships between older and younger men. There are other examples of books direct influence throughout: characters in Wilde's storied read books that influenced Wilde, for example.

As with other works of this nature, the book is filled with references to both books and authors that any book lover is sure to hunt down: Walter Pater and J.A. Symonds, for example, are but two authors whose works I would now like to read.

The one disappointment in this otherwise excellent book was the author's final chapter. In it he recounts his journey in putting the book together. His writing suddenly seems forced, almost as if he is trying to copy the eloquence and brilliance of his subject; the attempt fails, and rather annoyingly. This aside, the book provides a different perspective on a life that is otherwise known for other matter, but which was ultimately a life "built of books".

There have been many books on Wilde since his death, some by his friends Oscar Wilde: His Life and Confessions (Wordsworth Literary Lives), some by enemies Autobiography of Lord Alfred Douglas, some by writers focusing on his trial Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde, his sexuality The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde and his legacy Talk on the Wilde Side. The best and standard work is by Richard Ellmann Oscar Wildewho strove to keep the writing and the outsized life in some sort of balance. But as Wilde himself said, most authors prefer to focus on the place he used his "genius" rather than his "talent".

Professional writers are now at a loss for a new angle to approach such a well documented and discussed life. And so comes this new work, a biography of Wilde as seen through the books he read or owned. While often fascinating for those Wilde completists among us, it would hardly be the first book to introduce Wilde to a new audience.

Part of the problem here is despite all that is known about Wilde, with his vast collected letters, contemporary articles and memoirs by seemingly everyone he knew, there is an overwhelming amount of speculation every step of the way. Scattered among sentence after sentence are the words "perhaps", "doubtless" (which does a better job sowing seeds of doubt), "no doubt" (for the author perhaps), "it is indeed tempting to think", "it is quite possible", etc. littering the text. And then firm conclusions follow this sandy bedrock of facts leaving a wobbly argument attempting to stand up.

Also the text is hopelessly padded with plot summaries of the books Wilde did or may have read; do we need a detailed synopsis of THE RED AND THE BLACK and LOST ILLUSIONS? A good editor could have tightened this book into a lengthy article but probably a very good one.

Because Wright is a good writer. His style is clear and engaging and he has assembled some of the more interesting facts of Wilde's life into short breezy and entertaining chapters. Many of his speculations are thoughtful and intriguing. It is apparent that much work went into the reassembling and examining of Wilde's library. It's just that not every act of hard labor need be made into a book.

I've had an opportunity to view many pieces on favorite authors, events, and places. I like to go beyond the staid coverage of the topic in question, to the individual pieces: influences, inserts, and inputs that make the person, play or place function and flourish. General biographies are fine as a start, especially when they also describe the environment that the subject operates but they are few and far between. Even less available (while acceptable or even understandable) are the books that explain the person through the prism of their parts: interests, influences, and passions. Built of Books is one such document that allow us to gain some understanding of Oscar Wilde, through his love of books. While the author does use terms such as "perhaps," and "may be," etc., his piecing of the Wilde puzzle is like a story being told, allowing for each of us, as the listeners to come to our own conclusions about Mr. Wilde and his life, and just as importantly, the importance of books, in developing our own passions in life. For me personally, this book made me review (and even order)other documents on Oscar Wilde, as well as other materials on the passion of books. This is just another example of a book reaffirming my love of books (with an additional interest in Wilde and other favorite authors of mine and their influences). Thank you, Thomas Wright, for a thoroughly enjoyable "story" of one of our greatest storytellers - Obviously, I recommend the book highly!

BUILT OF BOOKS: HOW READING DEFINED THE LIFE OF OSCAR WILDE provides an excellent account of the writer's life, times and inspirations, providing a focus on the library which was the source of many of his works. He was a reader, and his literary encounters built a collection twenty years in the making. This survey of his collection offers vivid insights into Wilde and book collectors in general and is a pick for both general-interest and literary libraries.

Those who would rule have mental habits which turns them into enemies of the literary life of modern Americans. I find a tremendous amount of support for my own criticisms of legal strategies in the book:

Built of Books
How Reading Defined the Life of
Oscar Wilde (2008)
by Thomas Wright.

The introduction describes the auction on 24 April 1895, merely 99 years, eleven months and 25 days before the explosion in Oklahoma City, and 98 years, eleven months and 28 days before the death of former president Richard M. Nixon, or 97 years, eleven months and 25 days before a fire that killed many Branch Davidians near Waco, Texas, which sold the contents of Oscar Wilde's library to pay the legal costs of 600 English pounds to The Marquess of Queensberry.

Oscar Wilde was arrested on 5 April 1895 on charges of sodomy and gross indecency and was in Holloway prison awaiting trial at the time of the auction. About two thousand volumes were sold for 130 English pounds. On the sale, I quote:

They also had the opportunity
of acquiring private letters
and manuscripts, even though
the public sale of these was illegal;
they also had a chance of picking up
Wilde's beautiful furniture and books
at knock-down prices. (p. 2).

Oscar Wilde's father was a surgeon with a country home at Moytura, on the shores of Lough Corrib, and frequently gathered traditional yarns on tours of the West of Ireland. Oscar exemplified Celtic ideals. The mythical land of Tír na nOg of his heroic Ossianic namesake was also taught to Oscar by his poetic mother, Speranza. Instead of cultivating respectability, she allowed Oscar to read poets that were considered scandalous in Victorian England.

American culture is such a mixed bag that modern Christians need irony to appreciate the problems of government crumbling like the walls of Jericho in a nation of shoppers driven by entertainment values to strive for the values that Oscar Wilde made literary as only Jesus Christ had been religious.

This was a brilliant concept: tell the story of a famous writer's life by analyzing the books he read. And you can prove you've looked at his actual books by mentioning the marginalia. The problem is that there is just too much speculation. I have never read a biography of a famous person that has so many uses of "maybe," "perhaps," "could have," "might have," "possibly," "It's not unlikely that," "It's possible that."

The detailed descriptions of actual books that the author tracked down are interesting. I will give the author credit for a great line: "...led me on a couple of Wilde-goose chases" (p. 314). The description of the mob going into Wilde's house for the creditors' auction is vivid and alarming. A mention that Wilde sometimes tore off pieces of the pages of his books and actually ate them left me baffled. (Did he do this often? Or was it just a stunt he performed in front of the most gossipy witnesses who would be sure to spread the anecdote around?) And there are enough quoted epigrams to keep one turning the pages hoping for more.

But it was very hard to get into the book. Before Wilde could read, he had to listen, so we get rehashes of lots of Celtic stories that he may, might, could possibly have heard. I felt the prison descriptions went on too long. I found it odd that twice the author gave us specific numbers about how many books were in Wilde's library and how many books were in his French apartment, yet he would then tell us there were "countless" this type of novel and "countless" that type of novel. If you haven't read a Wilde biography lately and you need a skimming-of-the-surface of his biographical details, this is one good and different way to read them.

Can't write a review since I have not received the item yet. I would like to know what is going on with Amazon. This is the second item that does not reach me.

There are so many biographies of Oscar Wilde, I appreciate the unique angle that Wright brings to the table with `Built of Books'. Unfortunately, he doesn't pull it off.

This book is in the form of a number of episodic chapters, so there's no real flow except towards the end, somewhere around the point Wilde is arrested in 1895. Indeed, these could in fact be a series of essays because Wright repeats a few anecdotes, which further enhance the disconnectedness of the whole. Though I didn't see any indication on the book that these were meant to be essays. He also speculates a lot, something I don't like to see very much in a biography. It's as if he were trying to fill some space to make this a book-length work.

There are many interesting tidbits about Wilde in this book. How could there not be with a subject so interesting? As the author points out A NUMBER OF TIMES, Wilde's life imitated art in many respects. But the majority of this book is simply boring, especially the first 2/3. It seemed to be nothing more than a litany of stories his mother read to him as a child and books he gave to friends. Wright spends much time going over all the different inscriptions Wilde wrote into books he gave his friends. A few examples would have been enough. About 100 pages would have been enough for this entire book.