The Wilde legacy

"The Wilde family was prominent, sometimes sensationally so in the literary, scholarly, political and professional milieu of Victorian Dublin and, later, London. In this book, two distinguished historians of Irish medicine. Davis Coakley and Peter Froggat, and Michael Ryan, director of the Chester Beatty Library write on the social and professional background of the family and assess the enduring value of Sir William Wilde's work as medical historian and statistician, and as archaeologist and antiquarian: Eilean Ni Chuilleanain looks at the role of Oscar's mother. Speranza, as an ancestor-figure for a contemporary woman writer. Lucy McDiarmid (University of Villanova) and Alan Sinfield (University of Sussex) write on Oscar Wilde's trials and on the scandalous reverberations of his name in the twentieth century. Robert Dunbar (Church of Ireland College of Education, Dublin) places Oscar Wilde's stories for children in their Victorian context, while Mary Elizabeth Burke-Kennedy of Storytellers Theatre Company considers their transformation into the successful theatre adaptation, The Star-Child. Wilde's plays are the subject of a lively discussion between distinguished Irish playwrights and producers, Marina Carr, Thomas Kilroy, Michael Colgan and Patrick Mason." "To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the death of Oscar Wilde, Trinity College's School of English held a conference on the Wilde family. This book is the proceedings of the conference."--Jacket.