Irish Peacock and Scarlet Marquess: The Real Trial of Oscar Wilde
Edited by Merlin Holland
Fourth Estate, 340 pages
Reviewed by Catherine MacLennan
Since the trial of Oscar Wilde is, a century later, still associated with his name, it is surprising that it is only now, in the year 2004, that we have the entire transcript of the proceedings with the publication of The Irish Peacock and the Scarlet Marquess: The Real Trial of Oscar Wilde (edited by Wilde's grandson, Merlin Holland).
John Mortimer, in his forward, and Merlin Holland, in the introduction, speculate on the circumstances leading up to Wilde ending up on trial. Wilde had started a libel action against the Marquess of Queensberry because of an insulting card delivered to his club, and was encouraged to do by his son, Lord Alfred Douglas. It soon appeared that Wilde would be the one on trial and some had advised him to go abroad. He didn't - Douglas was against it. The trial (trials) commenced, with blackmailers and rent boys appearing as "witnesses," and his novel Dorian Gray and his jokey aphorisms were discussed as "evidence," along with a long discussion of a story called "The Priest and the Acolyte" (a story he did not write). Holland includes an editorial from a small weekly publication, the London Figaro, shedding light on the mentality of the press and others that desired to see Wilde punished: "A giant among pigmies, Mr. Wilde has naturally been cordially hated by all the mean and little people, and now they think to increase their own size and importance by belittling his." Holland also includes the French appraisal of the British papers' reporting of the trial. The French displayed "a certain amount of surprise and distaste at what they saw as the English hypocrisy of professing to be shocked yet reporting as much prurient detail as they could about the case." (This is the crime reporting standard that the English tabloid press continues to this day, as well as the North American media, which supplements its newspapers' crime salivating-reporting with never-ending television coverage on just about every channel). John Mortimer quotes a story that he feel represents the true nature of Wilde: "His friend Helena Sickert's father had died and her mother, grief stricken and inconsolable, had shut herself away in her room and vowed that she would see no one. Wilde called and, insisting on seeing the mother, he got her to open her door to him. An hour, two hours passed and Helena waited for the inevitable tears and demands to be left alone. Then she heard an unbelievable sound; her mother was laughing. Wilde had entertained her, had pleased her, had made her feel that life was still worth living."
The above Sickert anecdote is actually recounted with even more touching detail in Richard Ellman's biography, Oscar Wilde, which I was reading, along with Joseph Pearce's The Unmasking of Oscar Wilde at the same time as the Holland book. The Ellman book is packed with entertaining and fascinating stories about Oscar Wilde. Oscar is very funny but then after the trial after things become horribly sad. Numerous famous figures of the period appear in the book: Whistler, Burne-Jones, Andre Gide, Walt Whitman, and many others, and it is interesting and shocking to read of his interactions with them at the various points of his life. While amply drawing on the mountain of research of Ellman's book, Pearce criticizes Ellman's mistakes and suppositions (the inclusion of an outrageous photograph incorrectly identified as Wilde; including an unsubstantiated and possibly self-justifying anecdote by a palmist; his commentary on various anecdotes) but mostly his theories on Wilde's health and from that, Ellman's "uncomprehending" interpretation of his life. Pearce is right when he says, "The irony of the present situation is that Wilde is remembered far more for his private life than for his art. It is not a state of affairs which would have pleased him." And: "The prurient and the puritan are both blinded by their bias. To one Wilde is a war-cry, to the other he is a warning. One betrays him with a kiss, the other with a curse." Pearce examines the contradictions of Wilde the critic and Wilde the artist, one professing frivolity, the other moral and spiritual, believing that this is the context that the man and his work should be regarded. He invokes Wilde's famous line about the gutter and the stars asserting "To look for Wilde in the gutter, whether to wallow with him in the mire or to point the finger of self-righteous scorn is to miss the point. Those wishing a deeper understanding of this most enigmatic of men should not look at him in the gutter but with him at the stars."