Reading Wilde, Querying Spaces

An Exhibition Commemorating the 100th Anniversary of the Trials of Oscar Wilde

“To commemorate the centenary of the Wilde trials, this exhibition and catalogue of essays return to the many sites of disruption visited by, profoundly changed by, Oscar Wilde. Drawing on the extensive holdings of first editions, autograph letters, photographs, periodicals, and ephemera from the Fales Collection of English and American Fiction, graduate students in the Victorian Studies Group at New York University trace the powerful impact of Oscar Wilde in the aesthetic, political, spiritual, and moral circles of late-Victorian England. The books and manuscripts analyzed, interpreted, and displayed are the textual fossil remains of the culture of Oscar Wilde's transgressions and containment. The exhibition, first mounted in the Fales Collection of NYU's Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, has now been adapted for the World Wide Web.”

The Victorian Studies graduate students chose from the available Wilde-related materials in the Fales Collection, and digitized those which they felt best represented themes in his life (Wilde and Religion, Wilde’s Theater, Prison, etc.) As it is an exhibition marking the centennial of his trials, the materials mainly focus on the controversial and/or scandalous aspects of his life.

The metadata for the images is relatively thorough- I believe the graduate students handling the materials included all of the metadata they could find into the exhibit. Some metadata included are: material type, title, provenance, date, author, publisher, and artist, if applicable. Additionally, the graduate students include instructive paragraphs to accompany each image, adding context and additional details the viewer would otherwise miss. The collection as a whole isn’t as well described, except to mention that it was originally in the Bobst Library at NYU, and from the Fales Collection. The names of processors, call numbers, and the dates of the exhibition are not included.

This is an older website if it was created contemporaneously with the centennial of the trials, approximately published in 1995 or so. The simplistic design of the site itself betrays its age; however, the digitized images are clear, well-lit, relatively large, and good quality, at approximately 600 x 800 pixels when enlarged. Although rare, disappointingly some items are not digitized for the web, and are just typed copies of the letter contents. The images are almost certainly not as large as the originals, but the quality is usually enough so that the details are clearly visible.

The intended audience is probably for the most part fans of Oscar Wilde, as well as Victorian Studies, European History, or English students. This site could possibly substitute for seeing the materials in person, as the quality is quite good, but as usual, serious Wilde scholars would undoubtedly like to visit the Bobst Library for themselves.