Oxford Notebooks

This critical study examines Oscar Wilde's "Commonplace Book" and "Notebook", which contain records of his education and serious reading in the late 1870s and early 1880s, when he was studying at Oxford University. His notes indicate how he developed the working philosophy which he was to use as a basis for his later critical and creative works. The text includes a physical description of the manuscripts, an introduction describing the intellectual influence of Wilde's family and their circle in Dublin, and a commentary which identifies sources in the notebooks and reinterprets Wilde's criticism and fiction.