NOT by Oscar Wilde:

Literary Forgery and Authorial Performance

given by Gregory Mackie, University of British Columbia

Thursday, October 4, 2012, 4:00 p.m.

In the 1920s, the name “Oscar Wilde” underwrote numerous dubious texts including forged manuscripts, association copies, and even fake Wildean ephemera. Since Wilde promoted all forms of performative artifice—including forgery—as the creation of “beautiful untrue things,” the forgers who annexed the name “Oscar Wilde” to their own materials did so, as it were, on his warrant. These writers turned to their advantage the incipient rehabilitation of Wilde’s discredited reputation by inventing Wilde fakes or, indeed, fake Wildes. By tracing a history of the production and circulation of “Wilde” forgeries, this talk seeks to illuminate the cultural work done by the rich signifying power of Wilde’s name in the literary marketplace.

Gregory Mackie is Assistant Professor of English at the University of British Columbia. His work concentrates on late-Victorian literature and culture, particularly Oscar Wilde, and early twentieth-century book history, architecture, and design. He is currently completing a book manuscript, tentatively entitled “‘Beautiful Untrue Things’: Literary Forgery and Oscar Wilde,” the early stages of which were supported by a Clark fellowship in 2008.

To attend this free event, please register here.

The Clark Quarterly Lectures 2012–13

The Clark Quarterly hosts four speakers a year at the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library. The lecture topics focus on the history of the book, book collecting, publishing history, the book arts and fine printing, as well as those subjects central to the Clark—Oscar Wilde, and 17th- and 18th-century British & Continental literature, history, and culture.

Future lectures:

Thursday, December 13, 2012, 4:00 p.m.
Printing the Past and Casting the Future: A Typefounder’s Tale
—Raymond S. Nelson, Jr., National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution

Thursday, February 21, 2013, 4:00 p.m.
The Creation of the French Café in Myth and History
—Thierry Rigogne, Fordham University

Thursday, April 18, 2013, 4:00 p.m.
From the Atelier Rémond (1793) to the Atelier Mutel (2008): Past and Future of an Engraving Studio in Paris
—Didier Mutel, Artist, Author, Bookmaker

Organized by Gerald Cloud, Clark Librarian, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library

Advance registration is required, and registration will open approximately 4 weeks prior to each lecture date. Please visit www.c1718cs.ucla.edu/calendar.htm for details.

All lectures are supported by the UCLA Center for 17th- & 18th-Century Studies.