Letter from Oscar Wilde to an editor, Date Unknown
Famed author Oscar Wilde reached the height of his popularity in the late 1880s and early 1890s, with a string of hits including The Importance of Being Earnest, Salome, and A Woman of No Importance. His career as a playwright had begun a decade earlier, although many of those works were not as well-received.
In this letter, he addresses a newspaper editor who had run a critical column on one of his plays, humorously complaining that the paper had inaccurately referred to him as ‘John Wilde.’ He lists several noteworthy ‘Johns,’ possibly alluding to poets John Keats and John Gray (namesake of Dorian Gray), but states that he is not one of them. Wilde fills the letter with melodramatic flourishes for comedic effect, insisting that the column writer was attempting ‘to falsify one of the most important facts in the history of the arts.’
This letter can be found in the Frances W. and H. Jack Lang Letter Collection.
Sir,
John is an admirable name. It was the name of the most charming of all the Disciples, the one who did not write the Fourth Gospel. It was the name of the most perfect of all the English poets of this century, as it was of the greatest English poet of all the centuries. Popes and princes, wicked or wonderful, have been called John. John has been the name of several eminent journalists and criminals. But John is not amongst the many delightful names given to me at my baptism. So kindly let me correct the statement made by your reckless dramatic critic in his last and unavailing attack on my play.
The attempt he makes to falsify one of the most important facts in the history of the arts must be checked at once.
here lies your obedient servant Oscar Wilde
