Horst Schroeder

 

Dr. Horst Schroeder:

Additions and Corrections to Richard Ellmann's OSCAR WILDE

second edition, revised and enlarged (2002)
(Braunschweig: privately printed, 2002), hbk, xxii, 311 pp, EURO 30.00, ISBN 3-00-011696-6.

When Richard Ellmann's monumental biography of Wilde appeared in 1987 it was unanimously hailed as 'the standard life of Oscar Wilde for many years to come' (Richard Mullen) - a prophecy that has come true: though some critics now tend to see Wilde in a somewhat different light than Ellmann did, with regard to the facts of Wilde's life Ellmann's biography is still as authoritative as it was fifteen years ago and is still 'invariably the starting-point' (Ian Small) of all Wildean research. This state of affairs, however, is not altogether satisfactory, since Ellmann's book, impressive as it is, abounds with errors, many of them substantial, as has long been noticed and as the present writer demonstrated in the first edition of this publication in 1989. So the need for a critical companion to Ellmann is as pressing today as it was at the beginning, the more so as a revised edition of Ellmann's biography does not seem to be forthcoming. Hence the author's decision to go over Ellmann's opus magnum with a fine-tooth comb once more. The outcome of this resolution is the present volume, which increases the number of two hundred and twenty annotations of the edition of 1989 to more than a thousand.

As in the original edition of 1989 the author has followed Ellmann page by page, printing, wherever he found something worth annotating, first, set in bold type, the respective page number of Ellmann's book (both in its English and American variants) as well as the passage called into question, and then, set in ordinary type, his own commentary. Thus the book lends itself to a quick check of Ellmann's biography and can be used as a convenient supplement.

Download the author's notes to chapter I of Ellmann's book.
Additions and Corrections to Richard Ellmann's Oscar Wilde
(pdf, 40KB)

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Copies of the book may be obtained from the author, Landshuter Str. 38, 10779 Berlin, Germany (email: schroeder@horst-schroeder.com): EURO 30.00, incl. postage (payment by remittance to the author’s German bank account or by cheque drawn on a German bank. Ask for PayPal.)

Karl Beckson, 'Ellmann's Errors & Omissions'

Donald Mead, 'Adding to Ellmann'

 

 

 

zuletzt aktualisiert: 18.06.19