![\"happy.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/happy.jpg\")
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Illustration by H. Paul.<\/em><\/p>\n Continuing an occasional series.<\/p>\n \u2022 Front Free Endpaper<\/a> has illustrations by one H. Paul from a “talking book” adaptation of Wilde’s The Happy Prince<\/em>. This was a hardcover volume published in 1948 which came with a 78rpm vinyl disc containing a recording of the story by BBC newsreader Frank Phillips. Callum found the reading on YouTube<\/a>. By coincidence I discovered this week that Klaus Kinski recorded some of Wilde’s stories in 1959, German versions of The Happy Prince<\/em> (again) and The Selfish Giant<\/em><\/a>, and also a reading of The Young King<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n Wilde is strikingly prophetic in his denunciations of what he describes here as \u201cauthoritarian socialism\u201d.\u00a0 He says again that in the present state of affairs, at least some men with the advantages of privilege manage to find themselves, to realise their potential \u201cIf the Socialism is authoritarian; if there are governments to be armed with economic power as they are now with political power; if, in a word, we are to have industrial tyrannies, then the last state of man will be worse than the first.\u201d\u00a0 At least some can have freedom now, in this state, no-one would at all. Wilde sees no virtue at all in the equitable distribution of misery.\u00a0 The collectivism of compunction which existed in Soviet Russia or Mao\u2019s China was precisely the nightmare scenario he was warning against. It seems clear though that Wilde actually thought the sheer unattractiveness of this made it unlikely. \u201cI hardly think any Socialist, nowadays, would seriously propose that an inspector should call every morning to see that each citizen rose up and did manual labour for eight hours\u201d.\u00a0 He may have \u2018hardly thought\u2019 it, but at the same time Wilde wrote this there were plenty of socialists who had just such a vision in mind \u2013 and sadly their type were to proliferate, and in some areas to predominate. No wonder that The Soul of Man<\/em> was an inspiration to many revolutionaries rebelling against the Tsars of Russia, but was later suppressed and banned by Stalin himself.<\/p>\n Ben Granger<\/a> takes a lengthy and perceptive look at The Soul of Man Under Socialism<\/a> (1891), an essay of Wilde’s that seldom receives the same degree of attention as his other works.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u2022 “As the weeks have gone by, it’s become clear to my actors that Dorian<\/em> is the work of a much darker \u2013 more radical, and more modern \u2013 writer than the flippant genius we’re all so familiar with.” So says Neil Bartlett<\/a> whose new stage production of The Picture of Dorian Gray<\/em> is currently running at the Abbey Theatre<\/a>, Dublin.<\/p>\n \u2022 A recipe for Oscar Wilde Strawberry Champagne<\/a> cocktails? Yes, please.<\/p>\n Elsewhere on { feuilleton } Illustration by H. Paul. Continuing an occasional series. \u2022 Front Free Endpaper has illustrations by one H. Paul from a “talking book” adaptation of Wilde’s The Happy Prince. This was a hardcover volume published in 1948 which came with a 78rpm vinyl disc containing a recording of the story by BBC newsreader Frank Phillips. Callum … Continue reading “Wildeana #8”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,42,5,48,14],"tags":[4167,117,4165,2946,4164,4166,4168,116],"class_list":["post-12183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-books","category-gay","category-illustrators","category-politics","tag-ben-granger","tag-dorian-gray","tag-frank-phillips","tag-front-free-endpaper","tag-h-paul","tag-klaus-kinski","tag-neil-bartlett","tag-oscar-wilde"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pq7rV-3av","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12183\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\u2022 The Oscar Wilde archive<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"