Victoria Clarke writes:
Speaking in front of a full house at the New
Headingley Club, amateur local historian Geoff Dibb discussed the thirty years
worth of research on the life and lectures of Victorian literary legend Oscar
Wilde.
Hailing from a wealthy family in Ireland, Wilde
was born in 1854 and was well educated, eventually moving to Oxford to study
Classics at Magdalen College - where he also began his creative and
journalistic writing practices. Following his first class graduation, he moved
to London with a friend to work on his poetry. In 1882 he embarked upon a tour
of America, giving lectures on art and literature, extending this lecture
series to Great Britain and Ireland from 1883-4, during which time he met and
married Constance Lloyd. Over the next decade his two sons were born, he
commenced his doomed relationship with the Lord Alfred Douglas, and he built a
strong reputation as a respected journalist and playwright, in addition to
publishing his only novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. The following year he unsuccessfully fought a lawsuit from Lord
Alfred Douglas’ father and was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment for ‘gross
indecency’. Following his release in 1887, Wilde exiled himself to France and
died destitute in Paris in 1900.
It is Wilde’s 1880s lecture series that Dibb
became interested in. Having read several biographies of Wilde, he noticed an
emphasis on the peak of his writing career in the early 1890s, with little
information on the background informing it. Having noticed in one of these
biographies a letter from Wilde, informing the reader of his stay at the Great
Northern Railway Hotel, Leeds, dated December 1884, accounting his lecture
on rational dress for women at the Albert Hall, Wakefield, native Dibb was
intrigued. He journeyed to the Leeds City Library to research some
contemporary newspapers, finding advertisements and reviews of these lectures.
It was through his library research that Dibb was also able to bridge the
historical gaps in the names of these Wildean Leeds landmarks - the Great
Northern Railway Hotel being situated on Wellington Street next to the old train
station, and the Albert Hall having since been incorporated into the Leeds City Museum.
Dibb recalls that it was at this point that he
began to suspect that his library research was generating new information. He
began to travel around West Yorkshire in search of records of other lectures,
and it was at this point that Dibb’s suspicions about his work were confirmed.
He was delighted to reminisce to the audience his being contacted with an
American academic working on an Encyclopaedia of Oscar Wilde, to which Dibb
contributed an entry on the 1883 lectures. Dibb found that these lectures
spanned a variety of topics, and were performed twice per day, seven days a
week, but mostly followed the themes of art, socialism, and proto-feminism.
A lively Q&A session followed the lecture,
with audience members’ interests varying from contemporary gossip, with, “what
do you know about the Whistler/Wilde rivalry?” to the technological
advancements of our own age, with “would he be on Twitter?” The informative and
entertaining session would not have been complete without the occasional
recitation of Wildean aphorisms, to which the audience responded with great
enthusiasm.
Geoff Dibb’s book on the Wilde lectures, Oscar
Wilde: Vagabond with a Mission is available for
purchase now. A more detailed biography of Wilde’s life
is freely available online.
Thanks to Victoria Clarke, who stepped in to blog our Oscar Wilde event at the last minute. She writes her own blog, on the food in Tolkien - shame she wasn't at our Beowulf and the Hobbit event last Wednesday! There's a recipe for Lembas too.
Audience comments:
Really interesting. Quite a fun speaker. I didn’t know anything about Oscar Wilde (thought I did). It must have been exciting to keep finding the papers as he did.
A good event, Literature, Laughter and
Cake! Thank you, good value on every level. A most knowledgeable speaker, a
clear presentation, friendly. Venue well organised by Volunteers.
A very satisfying event – very
knowledgeable and passionate talk by Geoff – the questions from the floor were
very well answered. Tea, cakes and venue all very good. Thank you!
Interesting, author knew his topic very
well and spoke fluently without too any note.
A very enjoyable afternoon. The room
and presentation were very well organised.
Excellent speaker – so good to hear an
expert who isn’t an academic! Delicious cake too: thank you.
Geoff didn’t have a very good voice. A
little slow and too local. He needs to work on his delivery and countenance.
This would have been better presented by somebody more eloquent and outré.
Disappointing that he seemed to concentrate on his work (Wilde) whereas the man
himself is far more interesting. Wilde was a v. flamboyant character. However
things did improve and Geoff certainly knew his facts. A little too much
concentration on Leeds – Wilde was larger than that. Overall did very well. His
book is a worthy one.
Geoff Dibb gave a really interesting
lecture on what could have been a very dry subject. I was very impressed.
Thoroughly enjoyable; wonderful
audience participation and comment. Excellent.
Brilliant – what a crowd! Geoff v. good
and tea and cake an excellent idea for this kind of event.
Most interesting – humorous and
informative – Wilde would have enjoyed it!
Brilliant, a thoroughly enjoyable
event, interesting, thought provoking.
Very enjoyable talk, interesting and
well presented. Good format. Lovely cakes.
Great event in conjunction with the
Leeds Salon. Geoff was a great speaker and the event was thoroughly enjoyable.
Thank you!
Very enjoyable meeting. Excellent
speaker. Well organised (once it got started!). Wish I’d known about the rest
of the festival.
Witty, entertaining and extremely well
delivered with great insight and humour. Good mix of delivery and audience
participation (Q&A).
Informative amusing talk bringing local
history alive.
Brilliant – well informed and easeful
manner made the talk exceptionally entertaining. Thank you.
Entertaining, broad, Leeds focused
which intrigued me and highly informative re Wilde’s personal views and
background.
Excellent talk and discussion.
Tremendous expertise, nice cake too!
Really like the salon format. V.
engaging speaker.
Good cake – interesting talk.
Very interesting. Well done!
Very interesting and informative.
Highly informative and interesting.
Entertaining and well run.
Very entertaining
Brilliant
Great
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