This intimate account of Oscar Wilde’s life and writings is richer, livelier, and more personal than any book available about the brilliant writer, revealing a man who built himself out of books. His library was his reality, the source of so much that was vital to his life.Wilde was a reader first, and his literary encounters, out of all of life’s pursuits, are seen to be as significant as his most important relationships with friends, family, or lovers. His library, which Thomas Wright spent twenty years reading, was the intellectual and emotional element in which he lived, breathed, and wrote. One of the book’s happiest surprises is the story of the author’s adventure reading Wilde’s library. Reminiscent of Jorge Luis Borges’s fictional hero, Pierre Menard, who enters Cervantes’s mind by saturating himself in the culture of sixteenth-century Spain, Wright gets closer to Wilde than any other commentator by exploring the bookshelves of his library. We also come to understand the way Wilde read—reading was a sensual experience for him, producing a physical as well as an intellectual and spiritual delight.
Thomas Wright was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford, Wilde's alma mater. He lectures frequently on Wilde, and has written countless articles about him. The author of Oscar Wilde’s Table Talk, Wright lives in Genoa and London, and sometimes writes about subjects unconnected with his hero.
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