Oscar Wilde, Rachilde, and the Mercure de France

William Andrews Clark Lecture on Oscar Wilde

—Petra Dierkes-Thrun, Stanford University

This talk discusses the little-known literary and personal relations between Oscar Wilde and notorious French decadent writer, publisher, and salon hostess Rachilde (Marguerite Eymery-Vallette, 1860–1956), who played a crucial role in channeling Wilde’s intellectual impact for the 20th century. Through her work at the Parisian literary magazine Mercure de France in the early 1890s, Rachilde provided Wilde with a network of avant-garde writers and journalists, including Wilde’s longtime translator Henry Davray. The literary admiration between Rachilde and Wilde was mutual: traces of Rachilde’s 1884 novel Monsieur Vénus can be found in a typescript of Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray held at the Clark, and Wilde’s Salomé impacted Rachilde’s own work in Symbolist theater and her novel La Jongleuse (1900). After Wilde’s 1895 trials and death in 1900, Rachilde also wrote articles defending homosexual love, reviewed and advertised Wilde’s work in the Mercure, and commissioned translations that helped recuperate Wilde’s artistic reputation in France and beyond.

Details & Booking: www.1718.ucla.edu/events/wilde-lecture-2017/