OUP's Oscar Wilde: The Short Fiction

IN 1888 THE READER for a prestigious publishing house critiqued Oscar Wilde's proposed book, The Happy Prince and Other Tales. The report for Macmillan & Co. twisted the knife in a condescendingly offhand way. The work, the reader conceded, did show "'the literary knack – the point and finish'" of a man of letters with a superficial facility for the stylish phrase. But the stories were definitely second-class material, lacking "'any striking imaginative brilliance.…They are pretty and bright, but they hardly strike into the reader's mind.'" As Ian Small notes in his splendid introduction to The Short Fiction, this was a serious error in judgement, replicated even today by critics who continue to overlook Wilde's short stories. Whether in 1888 Macmillan was wary of Wilde's reputation or simply unwilling to take a commercial chance on a small print-run project, the publisher lost an opportunity. Wilde placed the volume with the house of David Nutt, and the book sold well, with a second edition in 1889.

This excellent collection of Wilde's short fiction, edited with erudition, thoroughness and meticulous care by Small, goes a long way to redressing the comparative neglect of Wilde's varied engagements with the short story genre. It will undoubtedly encourage scholars to give more sustained attention to this side of Wilde's output. Moreover, all critics of Wilde's work will benefit from the editor's well considered introduction which prepares the ground for a better understanding of the genesis and significance of Wilde's short narrative prose: the three collections of short stories (The Happy Prince and Other Tales, Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories, A House of Pomegranates); Wilde's first published attempt at narrative prose (a translation of Turgenev's "A Fire at Sea"); and The incomparable and ingenious [sic] History of Mr W. H. (together with its earlier periodical form, "The Portrait of Mr W. H.").

Small's task is not an easy one, because there is little by way of evidence and "textual witnesses" to suggest just why Wilde took up short fiction and what lay behind his increasing confidence and skill in handling the genre and extending its scope. The extant correspondence with publishers about this fiction is limited; there are few remaining proofs or manuscripts; even Wilde's own views about the genre are largely unknown. Small summarizes the general approach taken to Wilde's "gradually accelerating pattern of success," seen as a steady progression from one literary persona to another: edgy, at times outrageous lecturer; anonymous periodical contributor; respectable journalist, editor and critic; and finally, famous author and lionized playwright. But Small rightly warns that the real trajectory of Wilde's career is not quite so neat and straightforward. In fact, by tracing the ups and downs of Wilde's engagement with the field of short narrative fiction, he demonstrates not only Wilde's doggedness in fashioning and promoting his literary identity and making important contacts, but also his shrewdness and skill in appealing to different readerships and thereby enhancing his commercial attractiveness and success. Wilde had unique creative gifts, and Richard Ellmann may well make a fair point (acknowledged by Small) that between 1886 and 1889 Wilde's "'new sexual direction'" sparked a more adventurous and stylish approach in his artistic and critical work. But Small's detailed charting of the composition and publishing history of Wilde's short fiction also shows a writer fully in touch with the demands of the marketplace and well aware that—contractually—every word had its price (raising with Blackwood the calculation of his payment by length for "The Portrait of Mr W. H." for example).

Given the paucity of evidence, aspects of Small's analysis remain speculative. But even so, he is persuasive and astute in arguing for the complexity of Wilde's creative strategy in the mid-to-late 1880s, building his case with judicious assessment of a wide range...