‘From Decadence to Despair’ — the rise and fall of Oscar Wilde mapped out in Trinity exhibition

Posted on: 16 October 2024

The rise and fall of Oscar Wilde is the focus of an exhibition in Trinity’s Old Library, being held to mark 170 years since the acclaimed playwright was born on 16 October, 1854.

Entitled Oscar Wilde: From Decadence to Despair the exhibition, and an accompanying online exhibition curated by the Library of Trinity College Dublin, maps out Wilde’s meteoric rise to fame and also his dramatic fall from grace.

Poet, playwright, novelist, essayist, short-story writer and master of the one-liner, Oscar Wilde is considered one of the major writers of the late nineteenth century and is among one of Trinity’s most celebrated students. Beside his literary accomplishments, Wilde was known for his wit, flamboyant dress and conversation, and is now considered one of the first 'marketed celebrities'.

The 22 exhibits on display in the Long Room include personal photographs, memorabilia, letters, trade cards and theatre programmes which focus on the themes of Wilde’s formative years, Wilde’s years living in Continental Europe, his glittering social circle and his final years in exile. 

This material and 100 other items are also available for the public to view as a digital collection, the Oscar Wilde Collection, as part of the Virtual Trinity Library.

Highlights of the exhibition include:

• A set of beautifully illustrated commercial trade cards inspired by Wilde’s famous “aesthetic tour” of America in 1882. Wilde was a master of self-promotion, and his face was used more than any other celebrity in 1882 to promote a wide variety of products from cigars to kitchen stoves, even extending to bosom beautifiers and complexion enhancers
• A letter to his classics professor in Trinity, Sir John Pentland Mahaffy (former Provost of Trinity) complimenting him as “my first and best teacher” and “the scholar who showed me how to love Greek things”.
• There is also a remarkable ink caricature of Wilde being rebuked for a midnight aesthetic meeting in the Suggestion Book of the Philosophical Society.
• Wilde's silver calling card case, a supposed gift from his friend Ada Leverson presented to him on his release from Reading Gaol, inscribed “For Sebastian Melmoth from Sphinx”.
• A receipt for the sum of £25 received from his friend More Adey. With the money his friends purchased clothes, soap, scent and hair-dye so he could feel “physically cleaned of the stain and soil of prison life”.
• A moving letter from Wilde to his friend, the writer Eliza Stannard, written shortly after his release from Reading Gaol in May 1897. Writing from a hotel in Normandy, Wilde remarks, “of course I have passed through a very terrible punishment and have suffered to the pitch of anguish and despair” and refers to himself as “an unworthy son”. 

The exhibition forms part of the  Book of Kells Experience and runs until January 29, 2025. See here to book tickets for both exhibitions. 

Curator of the exhibition and Assistant Librarian at the Library of Trinity College Dublin Caoimhe Ní Ghormáin said: "Oscar Wilde remains an immensely popular and intriguing character today. Through this exhibition we aim to celebrate Wilde as a Dubliner and also as one of Trinity College Dublin's most famous alumni by exploring the unique items on display in the Long Room from the Library's Oscar Wilde collection."

Laura Shanahan, Head of Research Collections, the Library of Trinity College Dublin, added:  

“The Oscar Wilde Collection held at the Library of Trinity College Dublin comprises items of great significance, including manuscript and print materials; letters, photographs and some unique items of memorabilia among others. It is the only Oscar Wilde archive held in a public institution in Ireland.  Researchers including Wilde biographers have made extensive use of the archive over the years. We are delighted to share the collection with new audiences in this Long Room exhibition and online exhibition.”

The exhibition is a rerun of a similar exhibition held in 2017 and complements an exhibition currently being held in Magdalen College, University of Oxford, to mark 150 years since Wilde matriculated from the College. Three items from Trinity’s Oscar Wilde collection have been loaned to Oxford for this exhibition — a sales catalogue of Wilde's books and household goods; a letter from Wilde to his son Cyril; and the calling card of ‘Sebastian Melmoth’.

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