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

by Thomas Wright and Thomas Wright

Book Overview

An entirely new kind of biography, Built of Books explores the mind and personality of Oscar Wilde through his taste in books

This intimate account of Oscar Wilde's life and writings is richer, livelier, and more personal than any book available about the brilliant writer, revealing a man who built himself out of books. His library was his reality, the source of so much that was vital to his life. A reader first, his readerly...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0805092463
• ISBN13: 9780805092462
• Release Date: April 2010
• Publisher: St. Martins Press-3PL
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.6" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Oscar's tragic life

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

A New Kind of Biography

Wright, Thomas. "Built of Books: How Reading Defined the Life of Oscar Wilde", Henry Holt and Company, 2009. A New Kind of Biography Amos Lassen There have been many biographies of Oscar Wilde but here is one based upon what the Irishman read. Wilde was a serious reader and it seems like he enjoyed reading just about anything from the intellectual to the pornographic. Wilde loved books with beautiful bindings and he often sent them to young men as gifts. He would also tear off and eat the top of a page when he read it (similar to a college professor of mine who felt that once a page had been read there was no need to keep it so he tore it out and on his bookshelves were just the spines of the books he had read). After all Wilde spent time in prison and he had little more to do than to read. One wonders id the reason he wrote so brilliantly was because he read so much. While Wilde appeared to be a modern man (Because of his homosexuality), he was not like a modern man in terms of his reading habits. He had a classical education and read the classics and if art imitates life as we see in his work than he indeed was an intellectual. He came to life by reading and we are so lucky to have had him.

For the Love of Life & Books

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!

A pick for both general-interest and literary libraries

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.