A critic in Pall Mall

A Critic in Pall Mall is a collection of the early journalism of Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), gathering reviews and occasional pieces he wrote in the 1880s for the Pall Mall Gazette and other London papers, assembled posthumously from his uncollected prose. Before his fame as novelist and dramatist, Wilde earned his living for years as a working reviewer, covering poetry, fiction, cookery books, and society memoirs, and editing The Woman’s World magazine. The reviews show the formation of the critical positions he would perfect in Intentions: the supremacy of form, the critic as artist, the case against realism. They also display his practical generosity to minor writers and his pleasure in puncturing pretension. The collection is a source for Wilde’s critical development and for 1880s London literary journalism. Free PDF download available on BDeBooks.