About Teacher CPD: Oscar Wilde in Context
Join our panel of experts for fresh insights, tips and resources for teaching Wilde's work at Key Stage 4 and 5, focusing on The Importance of Being Earnest, Dorian Gray and other texts.
We're thrilled to welcome writer and Oscar Wilde's only grandson Merlin Holland, Professor Rebecca N Mitchell, teacher Anna Davenport and Library curators for a lively discussion. They'll offer contextual insights and critical ideas, using vivid sources from manuscript drafts to early production photos.
What to expect
British Library curators will delve into treasures from the archives, including the manuscript draft of The Importance of Being Earnest, The Picture of Dorian Gray in Lippincott's Magazine and newspaper coverage of the Oscar Wilde trial.
Merlin Holland will explore the unexpected Oscar Wilde, looking behind the comedy mask in his work.
Professor Rebecca N Mitchell will discuss the representation of gender and sexuality in The Picture of Dorian Gray, as well as The Importance of Being Earnest and An Ideal Husband.
Teacher Anna Davenport will offer fresh ideas for approaching Wilde's work, using rich primary sources with students.
There will be time for our speakers to respond to some of your questions.
Following the event, delegates will receive a digital resource pack full of expert articles and vivid sources to strengthen students' understanding of Wilde's work in context.
If you have any queries, please email discovering.literature@bl.uk
Merlin Holland
Merlin Holland, the only grandson of Oscar Wilde, is an author living in France.
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For the last 40 years he has been researching his grandfather’s life and works. His publications include Irish Peacock and Scarlet Marquess, the first complete, verbatim record of the libel trial which ultimately brought Oscar Wilde to ruin and The Wilde Album, a pictorial biography of Oscar Wilde. After Oscar’s conviction in 1895, his wife, Constance, and their two sons were forced to move abroad and change their name to Holland. The family has never reverted to the name Wilde.
Rebecca N Mitchell
Rebecca N Mitchell is Professor of Victorian Literature and Culture at the University of Birmingham.
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She has published widely on Oscar Wilde, Victorian fashion, print and visual culture, and George Meredith. Her books include Victorian Lessons in Empathy and Difference (Ohio State, 2011); Oscar Wilde’s Chatterton: Literary History, Romanticism, and the Art of Forgery, co-authored with Joseph Bristow (Yale, 2015); and Fashioning the Victorians: A Critical Sourcebook (Bloomsbury, 2018). She is currently co-editing, with Joseph Bristow and Yvonne Ivory, the final volumes of the Oxford English Texts edition of the Complete Works of Oscar Wilde. Since 2023, she has been co-editor of Victorian Literature and Culture (Cambridge UP).
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