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Oscar Wilde's Crucifix: A Biographical Experiment

Name: Oscar Wilde's Crucifix: A Biographical Experiment
Brand: Four Winds Press
SKU: 9781940423210
Price: 12.99 USD
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Contributors:

Maarten Asscher

Publisher:

Four Winds Press

Binding:

Paperback

Book Category:

Biography & Autobiography, History, Family & Relationships

Book Subcategory:

Literary Figures, Europe, Love & Romance

Book Topic:

Great Britain

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The product is eligible for a complimentary return within 30 days from the date of purchase. Furthermore, individual items are shipped within 24 hours of receiving the order.

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Specifications +

Release Date:

2025-05-20

ISBN 13:

9781940423210

Weight:

0.49 lbs

Size:

8.50 x 5.50 x 0.43 inches

Pages:

224

Mint Condition +

product description

Description

While a student at Oxford, Oscar Wilde was courting a beautiful Dublin girl, Florence Balcombe, and on Christmas Day 1876 he presented her with a love gift of a golden crucifix. Two years later, Florence surprised Oscar by suddenly marrying another young writer from Dublin, Bram Stoker, the future author of Dracula.

Dutch writer Maarten Asscher uses that crucifix as a fulcrum to examine Wilde's early development as an artist, from a seminal trip to Greece to his whirlwind tour of America and beyond, including real-life encounters with Walt Whitman and Arthur Conan Doyle. Asscher draws on the complete panoply of Wilde scholarship to supplement historical fact with imaginative reconstruction, including a myth-busting account of Wilde's deathbed in Paris, and a fictional solution to the mystery of the crucifix delivered by none other than Sherlock Holmes. The result is a convincing and original interpretation of Victorian history, and a literary tour de force.

About the Author
Maarten Asscher was publisher of the leading Dutch publisher J M Meulenhoff for eight years, and managing director of Athenaeum Bookshop in Amsterdam for fifteen years. He has published more than twenty books including novels, poems, and essays, to critical acclaim. A selection of his essays was translated in the US as Apples & Oranges: In Praise of Comparisons (Four Winds Press, 2015). Oscar Wilde's Crucifix is his first book written in English. He lives in Amsterdam.