Review: Oscar Wilde’s life was a tragic work of art. A new biography sketches it perfectly

On the Shelf Oscar Wilde: A Life By Matthew Sturgis Knopf: 864 pages, $40 If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores. Matthew Sturgis’ new book, “Oscar Wilde: A Life,” the first major biography since Richard Ellmann’s in 1987, provides an excellent opportunity to revisit and re-enjoy the fabulous genius of Wilde. “Nothing succeeds like excess,” Wilde famously said, but then Wilde famously said a lot of things; it’s hard to think of any artist who has been more frequently and happily quoted. Then, in the 1890s, the great audience-pleasing stage comedies came roaring along, from “An Ideal Husband” to “The Importance of Being Earnest,” in which he pioneered yet another American genre, the “screwball comedy.” Yet his greatest single work, and the one least appreciated in Wilde’s lifetime, was probably “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” which today reads like another intimation of Wilde’s doom. As Wilde wrote about the book’s three major characters: “Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry is what the world thinks me: Dorian what I would like to be — in other ages, perhaps.” Entertainment & Arts A deep sense of kinship with Virginia Woolf Reading Woolf’s extended essay ‘A Room of One’s Own’ is a transformative moment for one 15-year-old Tucson girl.