Oscar's Library

   This is another in the series relating to "private libraries." Among the others you will find information about the libraries of Mark Twain, Edward Gorey, Stalin and the late Professor Macksey who's collection was covered twice. There is even one about the furniture found in such libraries and the catalogues that were produced to list the books they contained. 

   There is a book about Wilde's library which has the title, Oscar’s Books: A Journey Around the Library of Oscar Wilde, in Great Britain and, Built of Books: How Reading Defined the Life of Oscar Wilde over here. Thomas Wright is the author of both books, but the titles may be the products of others in the marketing department. The point of books such as this one and the others in this series is that one may learn something from examining the books read, rather then the lives led.
   Unfortunately the the type of life Wilde was living led to the auctioning off of his library while he was in Holloway prison. A collection carefully collected was quickly ransacked and sold off to pay his legal fees. Using the auction catalogue pictured above, the author of Built of Books was able to determine the contents of Oscar's library and undertake the project of finding copies of all of the books and then reading them, which he has been unable to do, even though Oscar's collection was rather small. It consisted of around 2,000 volumes. Professor Macksey's contained over 50,000.

Oscar the Speed Reader
   Apparently, "Wilde was one of the speediest of speed readers. He claimed to be able to read both pages at once. 'He turned the pages [of a novel] fast to begin with,' a friend remembered, 'then faster and faster, and a little slower towards the end of the book. But he could not have been more than three minutes.' It is hard to believe that Wilde literally took three minutes to peruse an entire volume, but others confirm this report, and embellish it with the astonishing detail that he often chattered away on other subjects while he read."

Oscar's Memory
   He would demonstrate his quick reading skills and then submit to a test and "Wilde's memory became as legendary as his speed-reading." It is described as a "photographic" one and examples are provided of Wilde being able to recite long passages of both prose and poetry. "He regurgitated passages of Carlyle's The French Revolution, and declaimed line after line from the novels of Meredith. One friend described him reeling off sentences from Flaubert which seemed to 'unfold just like jewel-studded brocades'". 
   Those of you with good memories will recall that I have written about people with very good memories including, Professors Porson, Bloom and Chomsky, as well as William Empson and Chimen Abramsky, who also had a good library. Speed reading (and even Evelyn Wood) were also touched upon in "Reading Time (A Painful 5 Min.)

Single Author Journals
   Entire periodicals  devoted to particular authors have also been discussed in MM (see, e.g. "Periodical Ramblings (8)) and, of course, Wilde has one all to himself. Produced by "The Oscar Wilde Society", The Wildean: A Journal of Oscar Wilde Studies," is published twice a year. There is also an illustrated newsletter called Intentions which is published four times a year. Subscribe if you appreciate Wildean witticisms such as this: "Given sufficient notice, one can always be spontaneous."

The Bonus: 
   The author of Built of Books is clearly a fan of Oscar Wilde and books. The five thousand pound prize he was awarded for the proposal for his book about Wilde was spent at a Sotheby's auction for the purchase of Wilde's copy of Swinburne's Essays and Studies.