Oscar Wilde and Macmillan and Co.: The Publisher and the Iconoclast

Oscar Wilde and Macmillan and Co.: The Publisher and the Iconoclast Anya Clayworth Edinburgh OSCAR WILDE was an iconoclast; a writer who challenged and undermined the norms of society. This is demonstrated in many of his works which contest accepted ideas on topics as varying as prison reform , women's place in society and the rights of the individual. There is a great temptation to see every aspect of Wilde's professional life as playing out his status as an iconoclast. Warwick Gould, for example, cites Wilde's troubled relationship with mainstream publishing as a consequence of his anti-establishment stance. He notes that Wilde "was a scandal to orthodox publishing even before the newspaper controversy over the Lippincott's publication of the work [The Picture of Dorian Gray] .wl He suggests that Wilde was unacceptable to the publishing establishment to the extent that Macmillan and Co., a bastion of respectability and family values, refused to publish his work, "vindicated by the press controversy over Dorian Gray."2 At face value, Gould would seem to be right. Wilde was certainly never accepted by one of the well-known publishing houses as a house author in the way that, for example, Walter Pater or Matthew Arnold were.3 Indeed, if we look at the broad sweep of the publishing history of Wilde's work, it seems evident that all his work was produced by less well-known publishers like Osgood Mcllvaine, a subsidiary of Harper's which published Intentions, Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories and A House of Pomegranates or the avantgarde Bodley Head which published The Sphinx and Salomé. However, if we take a closer look at Wilde's dealings with a publisher , in this case Macmillan and Co., what quickly becomes clear is that before The Picture of Dorian Gray Wilde would probably have succeeded in being published by one of the major houses had he written work which fitted their publishing strategies. Far from being a "dangerous exception " who was "a scandal to orthodox publishing," Wilde was merely a 64 CLAYWORTH : WILDE writer who had not got the hang of reading the market for books from the point of view of the publisher.4 When he did get it right, Macmillan and Co. was quite happy to receive, read and even publish Wilde's work with the proviso that it fitted in with the firm's publishing requirements. Far from there being an agenda against Wilde from the beginning, the relationship between Macmillan and Co. and Wilde was entirely a pragmatic one based on the publishing needs of the firm up until the submission of The Picture of Dorian Gray by Wilde in June 1890.5 Wilde's opening with Macmillan and Co. was a traditional one; he was friends with George Macmillan whom he met in March 1877 on a trip to Greece with his old professor from Trinity College, Dublin, J. P. Mahaffy.6 It was common for Victorian writers to find an entry into the publishing world via what would now be called "networking." It was G.W. Smalley's recommendation, for example, of his friend, Henry James to Macmillan and Co. which led to an opening for James's work at the firm.7 It was in fact a good time for Wilde to have made contact with George because the 1870s saw control of Macmillan and Co. begin to be divested from Alexander and Daniel Macmillan to their sons George, Frederick and Maurice.8 By 1877, George was beginning to have a real say within the firm about publications. Wilde's first approach to George was sending his poem "Ravenna" for consideration after it won the Newdigate Prize in 1878. George was not enthusiastic, noting that: "My people here don't care for publishing prize poems, so I am afraid that though of course I should have been glad to oblige you, we cannot undertake yours." He suggested instead that Wilde get a publisher in Oxford to print it, "especially as you want it out quickly." He significantly added, "Whenever you think of writing something on a larger scale we shall be happy to hear of it."9 The promise...