Oscar Wilde
Witches, dragons and the Terrible Deev: a choice of this year’s children’s books
Highlights include boarding school antics, adventures in Persian folklore and a wealth of classic stories – including Hansel and Gretel, retold by Stephen King
What do Oscar Wilde, Gwen John and Evelyn Waugh have in common?
They converted to Catholicism in the past century and are among 12 notable ‘defectors to Rome’ examined by Melanie McDonagh
Richard Ellmann: the man and his masks
James Joyce’s celebrated biographer seemed a mild man to fellow academics – but his ambition and steely self-belief made him a callous husband and father
Exquisite: Tom Stoppard’s The Invention of Love, at Hampstead Theatre, reviewed
The Invention of Love opens with death. Tom Stoppard’s play about A.E. Housman starts on the banks of the Styx,…
Immateriality – or irrelevance?
In The Importance of Being Earnest Jack Worthing was given his surname by Mr Thomas Cardew, who happened to have…
Lillie’s pad
The Cadogan hotel, Chelsea, is where Oscar Wilde was arrested for sodomy and gross indecency in 1895, in Room 118,…
Xenophobic twaddle
The Bush Theatre’s new strand, 2036, opens with a monologue, Pawn, which takes its name from the most downtrodden piece…
Wilde at heart
BKLYN — The Musical gives itself a headache for no reason. What does ‘BKLYN’ mean? Perhaps it’s a random jumble…
Flower power
Critics have argued over the meaning of the great golden flower head to which Van Dyck points in his ‘Self-Portrait…
Naughty boy
In seven short years, Aubrey Beardsley mastered the art of outrage. Laura Gascoigne on the gloriously indecent illustrations of a singular genius
Naomi Wolf is holed below the waterline
What is it about Naomi Wolf that inspires such venom? Perhaps that she’s American, brash, media-savvy and not averse to…
Comic relief
Comic opera is no laughing matter. Seriously, when was the last time you laughed out loud in the opera house?…
Modernist cul-de-sac
The intransigence of Maxwell Davies, Boulez and Stockhausen is coming home to roost. Here were three composers, famous if not…
Among the snobs, slobs and scolds
The author of this jam-packed treasure trove has been a film critic at the New York Times since 2000 and…
Diary
I’m counting ‘Wows!’ Suddenly everyone is using this irritating expletive expressing incredulity, amazement and nothing at all. I’ve heard it…
Come rain or shine
‘Pray don’t talk to me about the weather, Mr Worthing,’ pleads Gwendolen in The Importance of Being Earnest. ‘Whenever people…
Something sensational to read on the train
Readers who have put in some time on the railways may remember the neat, brush-painted graffiti that appeared in 1974…
Wilde about the boy
The prodigious brilliance, blaring public ruin, dismal martyrdom and posthumous glory of Oscar Wilde’s reputation are almost too familiar. The…
High life
Thick snow is falling hard and heavy, muffling sounds and turning the picturesque village postcard beautiful. I am lying in…
Diary
Do fish have loins? Last Tuesday, in a pretentious restaurant, I ordered a ‘loin of sea trout’. It looked just…
Failed experiment
The Silver Tassie is the major opening at the Lyttelton this spring. Sean O’Casey’s rarely staged play introduces us to…
Aesthete and huckster
Sam Leith suspects that even such a distinguished connoisseur as Bernard Berenson did not always play a straight bat
