Oscar Wilde Discovers America

by Louis Edwards

Book Overview

From the author of Ten Seconds comes an adventurous blur between fact and fiction following Oscar Wilde and his Black valet and gifted confidant, Traquair, on a whirlwind tour across the United States... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0743236890
• ISBN13: 9780743236898
• Release Date: January 2003
• Publisher: Scribner Book Company
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.6" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Oscar Wilde Discovers America: A Novel

This book is very unique, because it is written from the eyes of an imaginative "black helper," who is assumed to serve Oscar wilde, a famous "real" aesthete from England. Moreover, the title of the book is named after a well-known criticism "Oscar Wilde Discovers America." If really a black helper had been near Wilde when he toured across America, probably some events written thtoughout this book would have occurred around them. In that way, the story continues to the last scene. So, from various viewpoints, this book is significant. It is not only intersting, but also useful to common readers as well as O.W. scholars. And the book I bought this time is just like brand-new. So I just like it very much.

Travel moved him

I kept hearing (and singing to myself) the first line of the Jimmy Buffett song that starts "Oscar Wilde died in bed, several floors above my head" every time I picked up this book. A poignantly funny book that will inspire me to read more of and more about Oscar Wilde, the flamboyant and ultimately self-destructive "Aesthete", this book fleshes out in fiction the sketchy historical mentions of a black valet who traveled with Wilde through the US in 1882. Wilde is secondary to William Traquair, the valet and Bowdoin College graduate, who ends up finding his horizons stretched and family connections challenged. William quips "travel moves me", and in the end travel left him places he may have wished not to end up. Very well done.

Interesting idea, good writing

This novel is actuallly not really about Oscar Wilde as much as it is about a black valet who accompanied him on his tour of America. The story is of an educated black man's discovery of himself in the late nineteenth century. I was intrigued by the concept, which is why I bought the book. Honestly, I didn't have much hope for the writing before I got into it but it was really pretty decent. Edwards to a very good job of capturing Oscar Wilde's quick wit and the characters are well developed. The feel of the time is about right, especially for the type of reaction an educated black man might get at that time. My only disappointment was that I felt some of the dialogue was a bit overdone. Not so much as to ruin the novel, but at times it was a bit distracting. On the positive side, Edwards does a good job with the structure of this novel, which has several complex parallel stories. Also, I think it was well researched - the author relied on numerous newspaper accounts of the time to capture the public enthusiasm and scepticism of Wilde's tour. Overall, it is a very worthwhile book. I will be looking for more from this author in the future.

Great Concept, Good Storytelling

What a great idea -- to focus on the black valet who accompanied Wilde on his great American speaking tour in the early 1880s. Edwards does a passable job explicating this premise, and in the process explores race and class relationships in America, as he takes the reader on a wild ride through late 19th Century America. Don't buy this historical fiction if you want all Wilde, all the time, the story is really about the valet, a proud, handsome, educated free black who faced withering racism as Wilde's travels took them to the deep South. It's a wild road novel that would make a fine movie.

A Step Back in History................

This book is a step back in history narrated in the language of the times, which is quite realistic. It is told from a quite different viewpoint, not of Oscar Wilde, but beautifully described by his black valet who accompanied Oscar on his nationwide American tour. The book starts out in January 1882, as Oscar arrives in New York to begin his tour. At the time no mention was made in the press of his black valet named William Traquair, who accompanied him. As Wilde entertains the New World with his lectures and humor, Traquair enjoys what he will always remember as the best year in his life. This is an engrossing and intriguing story that certainly gives us a much clearer perspective on what it must have been like in America at the turn of the century and especially what impact this time period had on black men. A story that?s both fact and fiction, and one that will make you fantasize that you are right there on tour with Wilde and Traquair traveling across America at a time when life on this continent was so young and open to suggestion. I enjoyed this story and I feel the author has accomplished what he intended to do by taking us clearly back in time!Joe Hanssen