Wilde Companion

BOOK REVIEWS assertion that Ulysses and To The Lighthouse belong in a previously unrecognized genre of autobiographical fiction sends the reader back to the primary texts with fresh insights and new questions. Of lesser import, but equally appreciated, are the thorough notes, inclusive bibliography , and the absence of any major proofreading errors. Steven Trout Fort Hays State University Wilde Companion Peter Raby. The Importance of Being Earnest: A Reader's Companion. Twayne's Masterwork Studies. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1995. xii +117 pp. Cloth $22.95 Paper $12.95 LET ME BEGIN with an acknowledgement of interest. Like Peter Raby, I too have written a volume for the Masterwork Studies series, an examination of The Picture of Dorian Gray (1995). Because I paid insufficient attention to the name of its publishers when asked to review the book, I found myself in the position of either returning it to ELT or reviewing the book and letting readers know of my connection with Twayne. As this review attests I chose the latter course of action. Nonetheless, the need for this prologue would have been obviated had I found the book flawed and deserving a bad review. That, however, is most assuredly not the case, and so I must leave it to readers to judge the sincerity and the accuracy of my assessment. Books from Twayne have often projected a dual identity. From the ground-breaking study of Joyce's canon written by A. Walton Litz in the early 1960s to Patrick McCarthy's most recent efforts at illuminating Ulysses, Twayne's literature series have offered some of the best contemporary criticism available. At the same time their books have quite consciously attempted to serve more fundamental needs as introductory works for college and even high school students. As a result their authors need to adopt a lexicon and project critical positions that reflect an intelligent engagement with the topic yet remain accessible to inexperienced readers. To the credit of the series and the various editors at Twayne, a number of authors have managed to achieve this balance, replicating the achievement of Litz and McCarthy by combining scholarly erudition with pedagogical clarity. Their successes stand as the more commendable because the independence of thought displayed by so many Twayne authors exists within a fairly prescriptive concept. All works begin with a chronology of the 263 ELT 39:2 1996 author's life. They go on to present in successive chapters in part one an assessment of the work's historical context, its importance, and its critical reception. Only the second section—eponymously titled "A Reading "—allows the critic a measure of freedom in developing topics that relate to aspects of the work under consideration. In each of these areas, Dr. Raby articulates clear views of The Importance of Being Earnest in a fashion that offers insights into its composition without presenting prescriptive readings that would circumscribe independent thought. Raby's four-page chronology of Wilde's life combines a useful overview of the author's biography with a judicious running commentary on the development of his canon. He marks the publication of The Picture of Dorian Gray, for example, by quoting a familiar passage from one of Wilde's letters that neatly suggests central critical concerns raised by the novel: "Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry what the world thinks me: Dorian is what I would like to be in other ages, perhaps." Considerations of space doubtless forced brevity in a few other instances that would have benefitted from similar elaboration. (The translation of Sahme into English and Wilde's deathbed experience with Catholicism remain more vexed issues than the chronology indicates .) Nonetheless, Raby manages to convey a great deal of useful information in a highly economical form. In part one of the study—Literary and Historical Context—Raby shows a deft ability to enliven a programmatic approach with pertinent scholarly insights. Indeed, from its beginning the study adopts an approach far too sophisticated to take at face value Wilde's disclaimer that The Importance of Being Earnest is "a trivial comedy for serious people." In delineating the context from which the work emerges, for example, Raby manages to...